Death Becomes Her
by Mrs. Crocodile
Summary: Summary: Elle walked into the restaurant, looking incredible, not at all like she had been dead for seven weeks. Eventual Sylar/Elle. AU after 3x18--Exposed. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**: It occurred to me that if Elle were to come back alive, this was the perfect moment. But yeah, it's a lazy title, lazy summary, and I'm sorry because you deserve better.

UPDATE: This story is now complete, so I'm taking out the author's notes about how it will probably never be completed.

**Disclaimer** (for the entire story)**:** I do not own Heroes. No money is being made off of this story. Please don't sue me.

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**Death Becomes Her**

Summary: Elle walked into the restaurant, looking incredible, not at all like she had been dead for seven weeks.

Spoilers Through: 03x18—Exposed

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**Chapter 1**

Sylar was ready to leave that abandoned restaurant and continue his search for his father. Now that he remembered what his father had done, he was more determined to find the man than ever.

From behind him, Luke spoke up. "How am I supposed to get back to New Jersey without getting caught again?"

Sylar turned around to tell him that he did not care, but then he heard a woman's voice. "I think I can help you with that."

Elle walked into the restaurant, looking incredible, not at all like she had been dead for seven weeks. At first, Sylar thought he might be hallucinating because it occurred to him then that his father had murdered his mother in exactly the same way he had killed Elle. Considering what she had said, however, he realized that she was probably really there. He watched her without saying a word.

She stopped several feet short of reaching him. "I'm guessing you're surprised to see me here."

"Yeah, a little."

She looked behind him. "I feel kind of bad for the kid, you taking your anger out on him just because he's here. I know what that's like."

"That's not what..." Sylar trailed off. He was trying to play it cool, as though dead ex-girlfriends showed up all the time, but he was a little disoriented.

She took another step. "I have a proposition for you, Gabriel."

Luke got to his feet. "Who are you? How did you find us?"

She turned to him with a smile. "I'm Elle Bishop. And I can get you safely to New Jersey, as long as Gabriel is willing to cooperate with me."

She gave Sylar a smug, questioning look, but he was not going to agree to anything until he knew what her proposition was. So he just stared back at her, because he was not going to let her have the upper hand.

"He's not going anywhere with you," Luke said.

Elle laughed. "Oh, that's cute. You do realize that he had a life before you? I know, you're probably the kind of kid who didn't have any friends in high school, and now you've latched onto the brooding loner, but you should have realized that he was always going to end up going with the cool kids. Because life is exactly like high school."

Luke gave her a menacing look. "And you were probably a cheerleader in high school, right?"

Elle took a deep breath. "No," she said with false lightness. "I spent those years in a facility because they said I was a danger to society. All because I tortured a few small animals... and one small child. But I was eight, and she was really annoying. You probably think you're all badass because you hooked up with Sylar. You should know that I found him when he was a broken man and molded him into the badass killer you see before you."

Sylar was not sure, but he thought they might be fighting over him, which made him a little uncomfortable. "Yes, and that's why I killed you."

She shook her head. "I don't accept that. You forgave me at Pinehearst." She turned to Luke. "And he didn't just forgive me. He got down on his knees and told me to forgive myself. And then he performed some kind of magic and created lightening in his hand."

"He has an ability. It's no big deal."

"Actually," Elle said in a snotty tone, "it was a very big deal because all of a sudden, he had my ability." She put her hand out to the side and let a long stream of electricity hit the wall to her left. "Without killing me. That doesn't happen very often with Sylar."

Sylar knew that he was letting things get out of hand because he did not know what to do with Elle. "Yeah, it was a nice moment. But I'm taking it back; I don't forgive you. I don't want to be around you. That's why I killed you. I don't know how you got here, and I don't know what you want from me. But I'm not interested."

She clapped her hands together. "Oh, we should talk about that. I found you through the government's system. So they're already on their way."

"So you _are_ with the government," Luke said.

Sylar knew that she would not be working with the government, so it had not occurred to him that Luke would think that. The way he had acted before was starting to make a little more sense.

Elle shook her head. "No, quite the opposite actually. I'm part of an underground resistance. But we should probably get out of here."

Sylar did not know what was with this "we" business. "I'm going to get out of here. And Elle, it would be great if you could take Luke back to New Jersey. But if you follow me again, I'll kill you again." He headed for the exit.

She called after him. "Like your father killed your mother?"

Sylar slowed down, but he did not stop. He was not going to dignify that with a response, but he knew she was right. He was not going to kill her again.

"Come on," she said. He looked back and saw Elle grab Luke's arm. "We're going with him."

"Elle," he warned. He raised his hand, but he did not do anything with it.

She pushed his arm down as she walked by him. "If you want to kill me, kill me. But there were conditions to my being brought back to life. Do you think I wanted to see the man who broke my heart and killed me? No, I'm just following orders again."

Sylar followed her outside. There were two vehicles, the truck he came in and a car that was presumably Elle's. "Are you saying that my only options are to take you with me or kill you?"

"Pretty much. It doesn't matter to me which one you pick either. Being dead isn't so bad."

He held her in place. "Or I could just leave you behind." He opened the car door and was really going to leave them, but then he heard sound of cars approaching.

Elle shrugged. "I told you they were coming. I know you broke your little sidekick out a couple days ago. Wouldn't it be easier to just let us come with you in the first place?"

He did not have much time to think about it, so he said, "Get in the car."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Sylar peeled out onto the road with black vans in pursuit. Elle lay down in the back seat, which seemed dangerous, considering the reckless driving he was going to have to do. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm hiding. The government doesn't know I'm alive, so my image isn't in their facial recognition software. I'd like to keep it that way."

Luke opened the briefcase. "What did she mean when she said that she molded you into a killer?"

Sylar did not want to talk about that. He addressed Elle. "Tell me more about your orders from the underground."

"Right. The resistance is being run by a man who goes by the name Rebel. He's tapped into the government's system, and he knows that you've taken down two teams of government agents in less than a week. No one else has done that, not the way you have. So he wanted to send an ambassador to you to ask for your help, but he was afraid of getting someone killed. So he figured he'd send someone who was supposed to be dead anyway, and if you killed me again, no harm done, just a little blood wasted."

Luke turned around, and Sylar noticed that he was not wearing a seatbelt again. "So he really killed you?"

Her disembodied voice came from the back seat. "Yeah. It took me completely by surprise. And I'm still confused about why. Because he didn't kill Bennet, who was as much at fault for what happened as I was."

"Which was what?" Luke asked breathlessly.

Sylar hated that they were talking about him. "You also lied about my parents."

"How do you know I was lying? Maybe I didn't know."

Luke looked back and forth between them. "No, he knows when you're lying. It's one of his abilities."

Elle sat up. "You know when people are lying?" She sounded almost delighted to hear this.

He glanced back at her in the rear view mirror. "I killed Sue Landers after I killed you. So were you lying or did you not know?"

Elle smiled. "I was lying," she said proudly. "I read the files too; I knew they weren't your parents. I even knew that your real father sliced open your real mother's head. Like father, like son."

Sylar shook that off. "What does this Rebel want again?"

"He wants your help to take down the government program that's hunting people like us. Personally, I think involving you is a horrible idea because eventually it's going to lead you to a building filled with people with abilities. And then you're going to want to kill them, and they won't be any better off. I told him that, but Rebel disagrees. He thinks we need you. Good guys, bad guys, he doesn't distinguish. He wants to save you all, sort it out later. And that works out really well for me, because otherwise, I'd still be dead."

Sylar thought she might be trying to entice him with talk of all those abilities, but he would rather talk about her coming back from the dead. "Yeah, about that, what do you have to do with this?"

"I already explained that he wanted someone who was dead, and he picked me in particular because we have a history. It had to be someone you might give a chance to make a pitch and not just kill on the spot."

Since he had let Elle make her pitch, Rebel might have chosen well. "So now that I've listened to you, will you leave me alone?"

"Nope," she said gleefully. "Now I am to stick to you like glue until you agree."

"Or kill you," he remarked.

Elle nodded. "Or you could do that. No big loss, right? Anyone who would care doesn't know that I'm alive. You see, the Company is gone, but the agents aren't. And like every good Company agent, Rebel is very comfortable entering into morally questionable territory. I'm expendable to him. He's been very clear on that point, I think that's his way making it okay. It's like, because I was dead, he's not going to see me as a person anymore. So he wants me to do what I can to make you want to be a team player for once, and if you don't want to, you can kill me. It just doesn't seem like you're going to do that."

Luke was still turned completely around in the seat. "What's it like being dead?"

"I honestly don't remember anything about that time. Dying sucked though." She was quiet for several seconds. "I still kinda feel dead. Like, it's just... I've never seen a zombie movie, but they don't have souls, right? That's how it feels, like I'm just not quite human anymore. The only reason I haven't tried to fry Gabriel for killing me is that I can't bring myself to care that he did. I can't really bring myself to care about much of anything."

The things she was saying should make it easier to kill her. She did not sound that thrilled about being alive or that upset at the idea of being dead again. Sylar would be able to tell himself that he was putting her out of her misery. Except what she was really saying was that she was broken, and if there was one thing Sylar had always been able to do, it was fix things that were broken. He did not particularly want to fix her, but he was the person who broke her in the first place. "If you don't care, why are you here pestering me?"

"Well, I might as well follow orders. I don't have anything else to do. You burned down my home, and after I died, Angela took all my father's money. Apparently I had a will that left everything to Primatech. I didn't know that. I certainly did not sign it. And that's another good reason to stick around you. Technically, everything you turn to gold is my inheritance."

Luke turned to look at Sylar. "You can turn things into gold?"

Elle nodded vigorously. "He got it from my father. Who he killed. Murdered. I found the body, head sliced open, the brain removed."

"I'm pretty sure you forgave me for that, since you-" Sylar stopped. He did not want to get into the reasons with Luke in the car.

"I did, but apparently we're allowed to take it back. I won't though." She gave a sad laugh. "Because I don't care. Isn't it ironic? You murdered my father and me, and the things I did to you pale in comparison, but I'm not angry, and you are. Also, you killed your mother in Queens, and yet you're going to kill your father for doing the same thing. You're kind of a hypocrite, Gabriel."

"It's not the same thing. What I did was an accident, self-defense really."

"He said he wanted to," Luke piped up. "Wanted to see her blood on the living room floor."

Elle laughed. "Well, he certainly got his wish. There was blood everywhere. He painted a mural with it."

They were talking to each other about him again. "Both of you really need to shut up."

"They showed me pictures, you know. I say they. My father showed me pictures every time you killed someone. And not just the bodies. 'This is Molly Walker. This what Sylar did to her parents. You could have prevented this.'"

Sylar found that a little confusing. It was the Company that told her to bring him someone to kill. "How were you supposed to prevent it?"

"I don't know. He was a little emotionally abusive. I've learned to accept that."

Sylar sighed. "Because you don't care anymore?"

"No," she said as though he should have known better. "That's one of the things you did for me at Pinehearst. You helped me realize that-"

"Don't. I'm not interested in going down memory lane with you. I've been avoiding cities to keep off the grid, but I'm going to find a good place to drop you off, and then I'm done with both of you."

"What kind of history do you have?" Luke asked Sylar.

"I told you to shut up."

Luke just turned to Elle. "What kind of history did you have?"

Even though he had not seen a van in several minutes, Sylar took a hard turn, sending Elle and Luke crashing against their windows. "He was annoying enough before you showed up. Now he's not even scared of me anymore."

She buckled herself in. "I don't know why not. He just found out you murdered your girlfriend."

"You weren't my girlfriend." Sylar felt that was not the right word, but he knew it was not entirely inaccurate either, so he was glad when Elle agreed with him.

"No, but I'm sure that's what he thought."

Sylar looked at Luke. "Our history is that she lied and lied, and eventually I killed her because of it."

Once Luke had righted himself, he turned and sat facing forward. "So, if you molded Sylar, why was it abusive for your father to remind you of that?"

He did not seem to understand that Sylar really wanted Luke to stop asking about him. "Look, you can ask her whatever you want, but I don't want you two talking about me."

"That wasn't about you, Gabriel." Elle sounded really amused. "My father just liked reminding me that I was a screw-up. I said a little, he was a little abusive."

Sylar laughed. "That's an understatement. You want to talk about bad parents, Elle suffered a lot worse than cigarette burns and abandonment."

Luke was intrigued by this. "What did he do to you?"

Elle shrugged. "It really wasn't that bad. My father loved me. He just wanted to help me discover what I was capable of."

"He did experiments on her," Sylar told Luke.

"He loved me!" she said with vehemence. "And I don't know what happened. All I know is what Bennet told me. I don't have any memories of that happening."

It seemed that she had not entirely accepted what her father had done to her. "What do you remember from that time?" She did not say anything. "So you're defending him. It looks like you still care about something."

Elle had leaned forward while insisting that her father loved her, but now she sat back, looking pleased. "Yeah, I guess I do."

The good news was that meant Sylar was right, and she was broken, not soulless. That bad news was that meant he had to fix her, not kill her.

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**Author's Note**: I know I didn't make this clear, but Elle was dead for around seven weeks, as opposed to Bennet and Maya (a day and five minutes max, respectively). Which is why she's more affected, possibly to the point of being a little bit like a zombie. And I really like that this allows me to explore a different side of that than "Night After Night."

As I was writing this story, I became aware of a song called "Still Alive" from the videogame Portal. That song has the lyrics: "I'm not even angry. I'm being so sincere right now. Even though you broke my heart and killed me, and tore me to pieces and threw every piece into a fire." That's pretty much the most perfect song quote I could ever hope to find for this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

After they talked about her father, Elle was quiet for a while. Sylar wanted to know what she was thinking, but he did not want to ask. No one spoke for several minutes, not even Luke, and Sylar enjoyed the silence while lasted.

Luke broke the silence first. He turned around again. "You're only the second person I've met with a power."

"That's quite a cross-section you have there. I swear, we're not all killers and sociopaths."

"When did you discover you had one."

When Elle did not answer Sylar looked in the rear view mirror and found Elle staring at him. "You can tell him."

"I manifested at the age of six, but I always knew. I could feel the electricity inside me, but I couldn't get it to come out until the day that I could. I was trying, and then it just happened. I burned down my grandmother's house that day. My father said he was disappointed in me, but all he wanted was to see me do it again and again. He took me to the Company, and eventually I just started living there."

Luke wanted more. "What Company?"

"Primatech Paper, but it was so much more than a paper company. It was founded by a group of people with abilities. My father was one of them. We monitored people, bag and tagged them, locked them up if necessary. So I'm more used to being the hunter than the hunted. Speaking of which..." She tapped Sylar on the shoulder. "How long before we get to your father's house? Because the sooner we get that over with, the sooner you can start helping Rebel."

He was surprised that she thought she was going with him to his father's house. "Which I never agreed to do. I still intend to drop you two off as soon as we hit the next town."

She nodded knowingly. "Let me just ask you, what do you want to do after you find your father? Because I would think that next on your agenda is stopping the people who are hunting you, which is what I'm proposing to help you with."

She might have a point about that. The government agents were getting problematic. "How can you help? Just tell me who Rebel is."

"If I tell you that, you really are going to leave me at the next rest stop."

It bothered Sylar that she did not believe he was going to leave her behind. "If Rebel expects my help, he needs to talk to me directly."

"Rebel doesn't trust you. He needs you, but that doesn't mean he wants to be anywhere near you. That's why he sent you someone who is dead."

"Was dead," he corrected without thinking. "And what exactly are you supposed to do to help me? You've been a little vague on that point."

"Intentionally." After a beat, she added, "I was supposed to approach you and make a pitch. I haven't gotten any more orders yet."

Sylar sighed. "You're lying again, Elle."

"Oh, yeah." Elle gave a long suffering sigh. "That's going to get annoying really fast."

That meant she intended to lie more. "What were the orders?"

He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his head, but he did not look back. "There may have been a few specifics on how to get you to be a team player, but I don't think it's going to come to that. I think you can recognize the benefits in this for you without any real persuasion."

Sylar certainly was not going to let it go at that. "No, I need to be persuaded. What do you have on me?"

Luke gave a small laugh. "Dude, I think she's supposed to sleep with you."

That had not occurred to Sylar at all. "Is that true?"

Elle grimaced and bobbed her head a little. "There were two methods suggested. I was supposed to go with one or the other, some combination of the two, whatever would be necessary. One was guilt, make you feel like you owed me something, and the other did involved my feminine charms."

"Well, I don't feel guilty for killing you, and I don't think I'd really want to have sex with a zombie anyway."

Elle seemed to think about what he said. "I know, that's why I haven't tried either of them on you."

"You haven't been trying to make me feel guilty?"

"No, why?" She smiled. "Do you?"

He knew she was not lying, which made all that talk of being dead inside even worse. "No," he said, glad that she could not tell whether he was lying.

Sylar was not happy when Luke brought up the topic of sex again. "So Rebel actually told you to sleep with Sylar? That seems kind of..."

He never finished that thought. Elle was quiet for a few seconds. "Oh, I didn't realize you were done. Um, not in so many words, but yeah. It's morally questionable to be sure, but Company agents tend to live in those gray areas. But I don't really want to sleep with him either."

That was not a lie, which was comforting for Sylar to know. He was glad they were on the same page about that.

"So, you two never..."

Sylar was going to tell Luke to shut up again, but Elle just laughed. "No, we never slept together."

Sylar already knew that was a lie, but his power alerted him to the fact anyway. For a second, he wondered if, even though she had not displayed any other holes in her memory, she did not remember for some reason, but then he realized that the tingling in his brain meant she knew she was lying. He wondered why she would do that.

Elle continued. "Rebel just said that because he knows that's the kind of girl I am. I've slept with a lot of men for a lot of different reasons."

That was a lie, too, and Sylar was not sure why he was happy to discover that. "He's seventeen, Elle. This is really not an appropriate conversation."

Elle's eyes went wide as though she was really concerned about this. "Oh, kid, you wouldn't like sex with me. I tend to get sparky. I mean, you might like it, but you wouldn't survive."

Sylar was about to say that he did not remember her being sparky, but he stopped himself. That was during the eclipse anyway. "Why would you say that? That is so much more inappropriate."

"I said I wouldn't have sex with him."

Sylar shook his head. "That is not what you said. And even if that's how you meant it, you didn't say you wouldn't have sex with him because he's underage; you said it's because the sex would kill him. And to a kid like Luke, that probably sounded kind of hot."

"Did it sound hot to you, Gabriel?" she asked in a slightly teasing tone. "Would you like to have sex that would most likely kill you?"

"I can heal."

"Well, _that_ wasn't a no," she said with laughter in her voice.

Sylar realized that every time they talked to each other like that, they were just giving Luke fodder for more questions. "Why don't you talk about abilities? Elle knows as much about that as I do. Like she said, she's had hers since she was six, she grew up around them, she worked for a company that hunted people like us, sort of like what the government's doing now."

"The differences are obvious. We only locked up people who were truly dangerous, like you and... Peter Petrelli. In hindsight, that might have been the wrong choice."

"Oh, Peter." Something clicked in Sylar's mind. "That's what this is about. Peter lost his abilities, and now the world needs a new savior. If he still had them, Rebel probably would not be sniffing around me."

"I don't think anyone would mistake you for the kind of hero Peter was, but I don't know anything about him. He's probably still out there fighting the good fight without abilities, and Rebel will recruit him too. We need all the help we can get." She looked at her watch. "So you never said when we would be getting to your father's house."

"_We_ are not going to my father's house. I'm still going to leave you behind."

"Leave me wherever you want, I'll just find you again. I might ditch the kid, though. Or kill him with sex," she teased. "Hey, am I the only one-- Luke, do you have a killing sort of power?"

"I can make my hands like a microwave, and I did kill someone with it."

"How did that feel?" There was some gravity to her voice, making the question sound like one a therapist would ask.

Luke hesitated. "It—It kinda felt really great. It made me feel powerful, important."

"Okay, so we all like killing. Am I the only one who thinks that killing someone during sex sounds like it would be awesome? Although, I might have the only ability that would make it fun. I don't know about microwaving someone to death."

Sylar tried to parse what she had said, because he could not imagine that she was really that twisted. "I have your ability, and I enjoy rooting around in people's brains, but I find the idea of electrocuting someone during sex horrifying."

"Okay." Elle nodded. "So it's just me."

Luke did not weigh in on that. Instead he moved the conversation along. "Sylar said that our abilities aren't for our amusement. He said we should only use them for a reason, with an objective in mind."

"He's wrong," she said. "They're part of us, and we should use them however we see fit. I mean, you should be having fun with it while you're still young. I had so much fun when I was your age."

Sylar did not think that he needed to point out how well that had worked out for her. "Thank you for undoing all the work I've done. Will you at least tell him that we can't risk exposure right now?"

"Oh, he's right about that. Under the current administration, exposure is a really bad idea."

Luke stole a look at Sylar and then turned back to Elle. "Do you think that emotions make us weak, sloppy?"

Sylar supposed it was his fault Luke was second guessing everything he told him. Sylar had set Elle up as some kind of expert in the field. It surprised him that it stung a little to think that Luke would not be hero-worshiping him anymore.

"Did he say that?" Elle asked. "No, I think it was trying to cut off all emotions that led Gabriel to kill someone for a tiny lie of omission."

She was oversimplifying what happened. "You let me believe Arthur was my father."

"For one day! And you murdered mine." She pretended to weigh the two in her hands. "I think I win. And I'm not saying that to make you feel guilty. I just want to put things in perspective."

"Who's Arthur?"

Elle had gotten a little worked up about perspective. Now she sighed and looked back at Luke. "Another one of the founders. And he wasn't a great man, nor was he a great father. He told Gabriel that he was his biological father and tried to use him as a weapon. But, Gabriel, are you really going to tell me that this is better than that?"

"Yes, I'd rather know the truth than be used as a pawn in Petrelli family squabbles."

Elle waved that away. "The truth is overrated. I think the truth is that my father allowed the Company to do experiments on me and made me the way I am. I'd rather not know about that. I was perfectly happy before Bennet told me."

"Who's Bennet?" Luke asked.

Elle answered him. "Bennet is a dangerous man who knows all of our tricks. And he _is_ working with the government now. That should scare you, Gabriel, because he has come closer to killing you than anyone else."

Sylar would have pointed out that Hiro Nakamura ran him through with a sword before he was able to heal, but she was right about Bennet. If Sylar was going to be worried about anyone, it would be him. "Bennet is one of the few people who has been honest with me through this whole thing."

Elle scoffed. "He let you believe they were your parents a lot longer than I did. He just finally came clean when it was convenient for him, which was after he shot me and slit your throat."

Sylar saw that they were coming into a town. They were getting close to his destination, and this town might be his last chance to leave them behind. He needed gas so he pulled into a station. He handed Elle a twenty dollar bill. "Would you mind going inside to pay?"

She took the money warily and got out of the truck. "It's prepay, so I'll be back before you're finish pumping."

It had not really been Sylar's plan to leave while she was in the store. He just needed to get gas and leave both her and Luke behind, not necessarily at the same time. He nodded at her, and she went into the convenience store. As he pumped the gas, he thought about where would be the best place to leave them. When he was done, he opened the driver's door and leaned in to address both of them. "I'm going to take you to that restaurant down the road. You guys can eat, and then hopefully, Rebel will be able to help you get back to wherever you need to go."

Several thoughts ran across Elle's face before she spoke. "I don't have any money for food."

Sylar found it hard to believe that she had followed him all this way with no money, but that was not a lie. He did not see why it was his responsibility to provide her with money. It was not as though he had an unlimited supply. However, he did not want to fight with her about that, so he peeled off a couple more twenties and gave them to her. "Here."

Sylar climbed into the seat and drove them to the restaurant. As soon as he was parked, Elle jumped out of the truck with no hesitation. Luke was a little less willing to get out, so she said, "Come on, kid, I'll tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Sylar."

Luke reluctantly opened his door. "I don't want to go back to New Jersey. I want to help Rebel."

Elle pulled him out of the truck. "I'll see what I can do."

Sylar gestured for Elle to come closer. She leaned across the seat. "Don't let him be reckless with his ability."

She stood and smiled. "Goodbye, Gabriel," she said as she slammed the door.

Elle waved at him as he drove away. Sylar told himself he was glad to be rid of them, as they faded in his rear view mirror.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note**: I think occurred to me that he (no spoilers) could be Rebel, but I didn't go in that direction because how would he bring Elle back? Or I ignored the most obvious person. You decide. Anyway, it's AU; different Rebel. Now, while it is AU from 03x18—Exposed, I'm going to incorporate what I want from later episodes and ignore what I don't. Hopefully I'll make it clear what I'm keeping in. (This chapter is a good example.)

Spoilers for 03x19--Shades of Gray

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**Chapter 4:**

Once Sylar was gone, Elle turned to look at the kid standing next to her. She had no idea what to do with a teenage boy. She wondered if having him around would make Sylar more likely to take her with him when she caught up with him or less likely. Sylar seemed to be protective of the boy with the whole "don't let him be reckless" thing. She felt like she used to be better at making these decisions before her brain was all muddled by death.

She pulled out her cell phone to text Rebel. She had left everything else she had in the car she used to get to the abandoned restaurant, but at least she had the presence of mind to keep her phone in her pocket. As she waited for Rebel to respond, she addressed Luke. "We're not going to get very far on forty dollars. We might as well eat. Are you hungry?"

Before he could respond, she got a text. It told her to stay put. "Excellent," she murmured sarcastically.

Luke spoke up. "I am actually a little hungry."

"Good." Elle headed for the entrance. "Let's see how long we can stretch out a meal before they kick us out."

The restaurant was an informal, seat yourself kind of place. Elle slid into a corner booth. "If anyone asks, you're my stepson."

The waitress came, handed them menus, and was gone without a word. Elle looked around. The restaurant was not very crowded; they would probably be okay for a while, unless federal agents showed up. She had picked a spot facing the door so that she could watch for them.

Luke leaned across the table. "Why your stepson?"

Elle picked up the menu and held it in front of her face. "Because you're not old enough to be my boyfriend, and I don't know you well enough to pretend you're my brother. Cousins or anything else like that might inspire questions, and I don't know how good you are at thinking on your feet."

"So, what are you going to tell me about Sylar?"

Elle thought about ignoring him, but if she decided that she needed the kid, then she was going to wish she had been nicer to him. She lowered the menu a little. "Look, all that talking and the Gabriels, that was just to annoy Sylar, but I can't really tell you anything about him. We kind of worked together; that's about it."

Luke shook his head like he was disappointed in her. "No, it's not. First of all, you did something to him that made him hate you, and then there was something about him down on his knees begging you to forgive him. That's a little more than co-workers."

Elle thought that part about Sylar on his knees sounded good, and she tried to remember when that was. "Oh, he wasn't begging me for forgiveness. He was telling me to forgive myself. He was—_He_ was forgiving me for what I did. But he doesn't want me to talk about that, so I'm not going to."

"But you worked together. That means he worked for the paper company."

Those weren't questions, but Elle felt the need to answer him anyway. "Briefly. But as much as I liked annoying Sylar before, I don't want to do anything that's going to make him too mad. So I'm not going to..." She trailed off as she stared at the door. She looked back at Luke and realized she should throw him something. She lowered her voice considerably and leaned forward. "Okay, I'll tell you this one thing. You remember that Arthur and Angela Petrelli lied about being his parents? Well, during that time, he worked for them. But it wasn't just about his parents. He wanted to be a hero, and that's why I believe that eventually, he'll do what Rebel wants."

Luke knitted his eyebrows. "I don't get that from him at all. I don't see him as particularly heroic."

"You have to look beneath the surface. The most important thing to realize is that he doesn't think that what he does is wrong. Sometimes he does, but mostly he's convinced himself that it's okay because of evolution or because his victims don't deserve their abilities. Or because they lied. Like I said, he's a total hypocrite. But he likes feeling powerful, special, like he's important. He likes thinking that we need him." She sat back, thinking about what she had just said. "And we do. We need him a hell of a lot more than he needs us. With Peter out of the way, this is his chance to be even more special. I don't think he's going to pass that up."

"Who's Peter? Remember, I don't know anyone that you know."

"Right." Elle realized that she needed to stop throwing names at him. "Peter was--" She saw that the waitress was coming back. "I'll start at the beginning, right after we order."

Even though Elle was starving, she ordered a small meal and forced herself to pick at it while she told the story. She would not be able to tell Sylar that she lost her appetite or that food had no taste anymore, because it was not true. But if Luke told him, he would not know that. She found a little pleasure in the knowledge that she had found a loophole in the lie detecting system. Now she was going to have to keep the kid around for sure, in order to filter her lies through him.

–

Sylar left his father's house feeling satisfied. It had not gone exactly how he anticipated, but he had gotten what he wanted, a chance to hurt the old man. His father was going to die, and it was going to happen in a much more painful, drawn out process than Sylar could have imagined.

Before his father tried to paralyze him and take his abilities, he had really gotten to Sylar with all that talk of the hunt being meaningless and the life being disappointing. Sylar had been ready to learn from the one person who understood what he was going through. That all changed when his father tried to kill him. In the car, the one thing that stuck with Sylar was his father's claim that he did not remember killing Sylar's mother, and it hit Sylar in an unexpected way. He did not want to end up like his father, a sad miserable man. And Sylar was going to live longer, possibly forever if he understood the stories correctly. Sylar could not change the fact that he picked easy targets; they were all easy to him. He was not sure how to stop himself from having an unsatisfied life. But he could change the trajectory of his life with regard to Elle. He could remember that he killed her. It could matter to him that he kill her. He could fix her, and that would absolve him of that murder, the one that mattered. Then he could walk away, and no matter how meaningless and disappointing his life became, he would know that he had done something differently than his father.

–

They managed to drag out lunch longer than Elle expected. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was eating so slowly. Finally, after about three hours, the waitress told them that if they were not going to order anything else, they needed to wait outside.

Elle had not heard anything from Rebel, so she pulled out her phone again. She knew that Rebel always had a plan, and she knew that being in rural Montana would limit his ability to help her, but she was down to less than twenty dollars, and it was getting close to sundown. Although she did not let Luke see it, Elle was starting to panic a little. If Rebel did not get them money in the next hour, she was going to have to rob someone, which was something she generally tried to avoid. She pretended to be casually texting, but what she typed was much more frantic.

She was about to ask Luke if he wanted to learn how to hotwire a car, but then she saw a tan truck coming down the town's main road. It was generic looking truck; there were probably a dozen of them in that town, but as she watched it approach, she became more convinced it was Sylar. The truck slowed down and puled into the small parking lot.

Now that she could see through the glass, Elle walked over to the truck. Sylar rolled down the window and said, "I was just coming back for a hotel room. I didn't expect you two to still be here."

Elle did not believe him. She had nothing to base this on but a gut feeling that he came back for them. "Well, I'm glad you're here because I told the waitress that I was waiting for my husband, and she was a little suspicious. I think that if you don't let us get in the car now, she might call the cops." She turned to Luke. "Get in the car," she said as though she did not know what he was waiting for.

Sylar watched Luke approach, and he did not do anything to stop him. "What did you do to make the waitress suspicious?"

While Luke had the door open, Elle hurried around to the other side to get in the passenger's seat before Sylar could drive away without her. Once she was buckled in, she answered him. "I spent three hours eating lunch. And god knows what she overheard. The kid asks a lot of questions."

"Could you just once call me by my name?"

Elle was sure that she had, at least once, called Luke by his name, but she realized that she did call him kid more than anything. "Oh, yeah, and I called my stepson 'kid' the whole time. That probably made me look like a horrible stepmother. There was lots of suspicious stuff really."

Sylar pulled out of the parking lot, and Elle could not tell what he was thinking. He drove for about three minutes and parked in front of a motel. "I'm guessing you still don't have any money."

Elle shrugged. "Nope."

Sylar thought about this. "All right, here's what we're going to do. I'll pay for you to stay here tonight, and in the morning we can talk about what we're going to do next."

He said it like he had just come up with that plan, but Elle still had a feeling that he had already decided to help Rebel. It was barely evening, and it did not really make sense for Sylar to stop here for the night. It would be better for him to change cars and keep driving. There was always the possibility that he still intended to leave without them, but then why would he have come back at all. Elle tried to run through all the possibilities she could think of. Helping Rebel seemed to be the most likely, but it was best to be prepared. She realized that both Sylar and Luke were staring at her. "Sounds great," she said.

--


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note**: I'm just worn out from exams, but I'm still here, don't worry.

–

–

**Chapter 5:**

It seemed to Sylar that Elle spent more time thinking than she used to. He was sure that she thought things through before; she was a successful agent after all. However, now he often saw her actively thinking about what to do, and that was new. He was offering her a place to stay for the night, and he did not see why that would be a difficult decision for her.

Finally, she looked up and said, "Sounds great," as though she had not just paused for a full minute. Sylar wondered whether that was some side effect of her death, like a glitch in her brain. He wanted to believe that all her problems were psychological, but that was probably a self-serving belief.

Elle got out of the truck, although Sylar had no idea why. He followed her into the lobby. "I can handle getting the rooms on my own," he said.

She leaned up against the reception desk. "Did you say rooms? Plural? That's just a waste of money. We can all share a room."

Sylar did not trust Elle enough to share a room with her, but the man behind the desk said, "Unfortunately, we only have one room left anyway. We're a couple hours out of Yellowstone here, and it's getting to be that season again. This time next week, we probably wouldn't have any rooms."

"Oh, that'll be fine," Elle said with a bright smile. "It's just the two of us and his son. We'll take the room."

The clerk scratched his chin. "Well, that room's only got the one king, but we got a cot the boy could sleep on."

She responded by saying that was perfect, even though Sylar thought it was far from perfect. "Shouldn't we discuss this before you make a decision?" he asked.

She turned her head to address him but kept her eyes on the clerk. "Honey, there's nothing to discuss. The man only has one room." She nodded at the clerk. "We're taking the room."

He wanted to argue with her more because there was really no good pairing for that king bed, but this was the only motel he had seen in town. If the situation with Yellowstone tourists was as bad as the clerk made it sound, searching for another motel might only result in them losing this one room. So he reluctantly pulled out his wallet to pay the man, who then gave them a key and assured them that someone would be along with the cot in a few minutes.

The room was a little bit nicer than Sylar expected, but it was still fairly cramped once the cot was set up. When the three of them were alone, he said, "I wish you would stop telling people that Luke's my son. I'm not old enough to be his father."

Elle sat on the bed. "I've already told people that I'm his stepmother, that we were waiting for my husband. Say he's sixteen and you're... thirty-two. You knocked up your girlfriend in high school. She wanted to give him up for adoption, but you couldn't bear to part with him. You did the best you could for him, except recently when you saddled him with an evil stepmother. Works perfectly."

Sylar did not know what to say to that, so he turned the room's other occupant. "You see how easily she lies? It's no wonder I don't trust her."

Luke narrowed his eyes in thought. "I can't figure out if you two hate each other or _really_ like each other."

Elle responded immediately. "We hate each other."

She was not lying, which was strange. If she was so dead inside that she could not feel anything, why did she hate him? Sylar almost reflexively said he did not hate her, but he realized, of the options, hate was the better one.

Luke had a hint of a smile as he said, "It's just if this was high school, which Elle said life is exactly like, your bickering would mean that you really like each other."

Sylar felt that there an uncomfortable amount of truth in that. "How would she know what high school was like? She didn't even go to one. For Elle, life has been exactly like her high school years were, but that's not really an accurate representation."

"Really, I was just being mean," Elle said from the bed.

Sylar looked at her. "You do realize that you're taking the cot, right?"

"Oh, no, I'm not. You guys can work out who's sharing the bed with me, but I am not sleeping on a cot." She watched Sylar as he thought about that. "You owe me. My hair still has severe heat damage from the fire." She pulled at her hair to demonstrate. "After all the indignities I've suffered at your hands, you are not making me sleep on a cot."

Sylar did not feel the least bit guilty about damaging her hair, but he could see how there might have been other indignities. "So you were on the beach, and you died, and... Then what happened? You woke up, feeling nothing?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure you want to talk about that?" Sylar nodded. "Well, on the beach, it was incredibly painful, physically and emotionally. I didn't understand why you were doing it, and I didn't fight it because I didn't quite believe it was happening. Then everything went black, and there was nothing. And, um, and then it was painful again because my skin was... dead. Everything was dead, and it needed to grow back. And that process hurt." She paused to gather the memory. "But emotionally, there was nothing. I wasn't angry, I wasn't sad, I didn't feel happy to be alive. Whatever that part is, it didn't grow back with my skin."

He shook his head. "I've been dead before, and--"

"I wish people would stop saying that!" She appeared to realize that this reaction was a little over the top. "I'm sorry. Yes, you've been dead before. But I was dead for nearly two months. You can't tell me that I'm not allowed to feel what I feel. Or to not feel it, as the case may be. I don't care what your experiences with death were like because I'm not you, and it's not the same."

It seemed to Sylar that she got worked up about the strangest things. "Okay, it's not the same as with me or whoever else told you that. Claire?"

Elle just shook her head, still a little distracted. Sylar was not sure if that was a no or an "I don't want to talk about it." He changed the subject. "Let's talk about Rebel. Who is he?"

"If you have to ask, then you don't know him. It would just be a name to you. Regardless, I'm not going to tell you because he doesn't want me to, which understandable since he has an ability. Although Luke says that you're not interested in getting abilities anymore."

Until then it had slipped Sylar mind that they had three hours alone together in that restaurant to talk about him. "I was more interested in meeting my father, but now I have, so..." He shrugged. He was not sure what he wanted now.

"Right." Elle nodded. She sounded a little disappointed.

"What does Rebel want me to do exactly? What's his plan?"

She did not seem particularly interested in discussing that. "He's open to suggestions."

Sylar felt that it was time for her to stop being vague. "If that's all you're going to say, then I still don't see why I need you."

Elle smiled and shook her head. "Rebel isn't trained to take down a government agency; none of us are. None of us know where to go about finding someone who's trained for that. We can't go a terrorist route; that'll just make people more afraid and make the government more determined. Having one of us in the government as a senator isn't doing us any good because he's the one who betrayed us in the first place. Nathan Petrelli was pushed to become what he is because his parents believed that he would make things better, but he didn't. You have unique abilities; you understand how things work. Rebel's plan right now consists of helping people one on one. Anything more is outside his area of expertise, so he is open to suggestions. And you need me as a go between because you don't know who he is."

"So Rebel expects me to do all the work?" He tried to sound annoyed, but secretly he liked what she was saying. They needed him because he was smart, and that was even better than being needed just because he was powerful. "I need time to think about a plan."

"Okay, while you do that, I should probably mention that I don't have anything to sleep in."

That problem seemed easy enough to fix until Sylar realized that she had not brought anything with her. "You don't have _any_ clothes, do you?"

Elle looked down. "Just what I'm wearing, which I'm going to have to wear tomorrow. So when you're deciding the sleeping arrangements, take into account that I won't be wearing much."

Sylar had almost forgotten that Luke was even there. When this whole thing came up, he had briefly entertained the idea of letting Luke have the bed. The only reason to do so would be to prove to Elle that he did not have any feelings left for her, which was a little petty. He knew that it would be a bad idea to put those two in bed together, not that he really thought they would do anything, but they were both a little unstable and unpredictable. And that was before he accounted for her lack of sleeping attire.

Sylar went to his bag and threw her the shirt he had been wearing when he was shot in that diner. He was just going to throw it away anyway. "You can sleep in that."

Elle stuck her finger through a bullet hole. "Is this blood?" She did not wait for an answer. "Thanks. Now I won't have to sleep in my bra. Which is good, because that's not really comfortable."

She got up from the bed. "I don't trust you not to leave without me if I take a shower in the morning, so I'm going to take one now." She pointed at both of them. "And don't even think about forcing me onto that cot because I will electrocute the hell out of both of you, and one of you might die." With that, she went into the bathroom.

"If it's that important to her, I'll take the cot," Luke said.

Sylar did not bother to tell Luke that he did not really have a choice. "All right, so what did she tell you about me?"

Luke had been standing near the door, but now he sat on the cot, accepting it as his. "Not much. She lied and said she didn't know you that well. She said you were just co-workers, which doesn't fit in with everything else she said before."

"Three hours with you asking lots of questions, and that all she said about me?"

Luke shrugged. "She mostly talked about the Petrellis. Their parents, that senator, Nathan and Peter. I think she might have been involved with Peter, or that she wanted to be, just from the way she talked about him."

"Really? Peter and Elle?" Sylar found it really hard to believe that they would be involved. "I don't think so. Whatever she said about him, it wasn't the fawning adoration of a crush. He really was that heroic." He realized the idea of them together bothered him more than he wanted to acknowledge. He did not want Elle anymore, but he did not want her having feelings for any other man either.

Luke must have heard how bothered he was. "Right, but you're just co-workers who hate each other," he said sarcastically.

Sylar wanted to write off that whole Peter thing as another of Luke's fishing expeditions, but he was not lying. From what Elle said, Luke had gotten the impression that Peter and she were involved at some point. Sylar told himself that was fine because Elle had never really been his. She was always a Company girl, and that was one of the reasons he killed her. The way she talked about Rebel before, it was clear that she was still loyal to whatever was left of the Company.

–

Elle wished there was a way she could take a shower and still hear what they were saying in the other room. There was a delicate balance, and she was worried about losing control of the situation. She tried starting the shower and listening at the door, but with the water running, she could not make out anything.

She showered quickly, using the toiletries the hotel provided. Once she was out, she put on Sylar's shirt and her underwear. Then she folded the rest of her clothes and carried them out to the closet rack. Everything in the motel room seemed in order. They were both there, Luke had taken the cot, Sylar did not look angry about anything.

She needed to do something about her hair because she could not sleep on it wet and unbrushed. "One of you must have a comb, right?"

Sylar rolled his eyes and pointed at the bag. Elle found the comb easily and did the best she could with it. Then she took the blow dryer off the wall and bent over to dry her hair. She did not look, but she hoped Sylar was staring at her ass or at least purposefully averting his eyes. She was pretty sure at one point she heard him admonish Luke for looking, which was almost as good.

She was not really sure what else there was to do. She did not want to talk to Sylar too much because she might say something she shouldn't. The fact that he would know when she was lying would make it all the more difficult to limit information. So even though it was still a little early, she got into bed, lying on her side facing away from Sylar.

Since no one was talking, Elle found it easy to drift off. After a while, she felt Sylar get into bed, and she tried to pretend that it was not incredibly awkward for her to share a bed with the man who had sex with her and then killed her. It should not be awkward; she should be completely unaffected by all of that. Her only consolation was that however awkward she felt, Sylar felt it more. "Hey," he whispered. "Were you ever involved with Peter Petrelli?"

Elle smiled. She knew Luke was going to come in handy. Whatever he had said was going to make it so much easier for her to play with the truth. She kept her back to him. "Depends on your definition of involved."

She waited for Sylar to say something else, but the silence stretched on into minutes. It did not matter; he had already said what she needed to hear. Elle fell back to sleep knowing that she was still in control.

–

–

**Author's Note**: I worry about borrowing too much from _Night After Night_, but if Elle wanted to make Sylar jealous, Peter is the obvious choice. To me, their adversarial relationship has a slightly competitive feel, at least on Sylar's side. Who's better, who's stronger, who is going to win, etc. Enough happened between Peter and Elle for innuendo, and that's probably not true of anyone else that Sylar really knows. So this is not going to go anything like that other story, but there may be a few common themes, because that's how I see things.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Sylar woke up before Elle the next morning. She had started the night on her side, but at some point, she rolled onto her back. He realized that he had never seen her sleeping before. With Luke in the bathroom and her wearing his shirt, it felt more intimate than Sylar wanted, but he could not look away from her. Her mouth was slightly open, and she was breathing noisily, just one step below snoring. Somehow, that was strangely attractive on her.

Elle stirred and made a small moan. Then she opened her eyes. "Were you watching me sleep?"

"No," he lied.

It did not look like she believed him. "Oh, good, because that would have been creepy." She stretched, arching her back up.

Sylar had to physically stop himself from watching her chest rise. "Listen, Luke is young, and I doubt he's ever seen a naked woman in real life, so could you please not prance around in your underwear anymore?"

She smiled and patted him on the chest. "Okay, for _Luke._" She sat up. "Where is Luke anyway?"

"Taking a shower, which is good because we did not stop the night before last."

Sylar was glad to let the conversation move into safer territory, but Elle turned it around on him. She leaned back and propped herself up on her elbow facing him. "Yeah, you do smell a little... masculine."

There was no mistaking that; she was hitting on him. "What are you doing?"

She shrugged. "Just killing time until I can get in the bathroom and get dressed."

"You're flirting with me."

She shook her head. "No."

She was lying. "So when you were thrusting out your chest or bending over in that shirt, that was unintentional?"

She stared at him for a long time, thinking again. "You should want to have sex with me," she said at last.

He was glad that she was admitting to it, in her way. "Why?"

"Because you killed me."

Sylar did not see how that made sense. "That's pretty much exactly why I don't want to."

"No, that's why _I_ don't want to have sex with _you_. After everything you've done to me, I'm through with you. But you should still want it. Because I was there." She poked him in the chest. "And it was good, and you should want more of that."

Sylar tried to read between the lines of what she was saying. She did not want to have sex with him, but she was still going through pains to make him want her. "So do you want me to try so that you can turn me down? Is that what this is about?"

She rolled onto her back. "No."

That was another lie. Sylar reminded himself that he really wanted to fix her. So if this was something she needed, he would ask the question. He feigned a casual tone. "Hey, Elle, do you want to have sex?"

She turned her head to look at him. "Okay, pretend for a second that you actually wanted to have sex with me. Is that how you would go about it? Because the last thing I want is your pity."

He got up on his side. "I don't pity you. I don't even feel bad about what I did to you." He just had to bite the bullet and tell himself that she would turn him down. "But I do want you." He leaned down to kiss her.

Sylar expected Elle to stop him before he could even kiss her, but instead she parted her lips and allowed him to slip his tongue into her mouth. He was almost disappointed when she hit his arm repeatedly and said, "All right, that's enough."

He pulled away from her immediately. For a moment, it was difficult to remember that was what he wanted to happen. She wiped her mouth. "Oh, that was horrible," she said.

"It wasn't horrible," he corrected, even though she was not lying.

"Oh, not that. That was... fine. It's just my mind associates you kissing me with you killing me. For a second, it was like I was back on that beach and..." She gave a little shudder. "It's a really strong association."

Sylar should have been glad to hear that. It would put the whole idea of them together off the table, which was the goal. In fact, it might have served his goals better than he had hoped. "But it made you feel something. What? Hurt, betrayed?"

Elle shushed him. The door to the bathroom opened and Luke came out fully dressed. "Finally!" Elle said. She got out of the bed, looked at her bare legs, and grabbed the comforter to wrap it around her waist. "Happy?" she asked Sylar.

He did not really answer, which was fine with Elle. She was very relieved when Luke came out of the bathroom because it allowed her to postpone the conversation she and Sylar were having. Once she was safely enclosed in the bathroom, she sat on the toilet seat and put her head in her hands. She had felt something when Sylar kissed her. The hurt, the betrayal, the confusion, it all came back with a vengeance. She wanted to beg him not to kill her because they could be so good together if he would just let them be together. But it was too late because he had already killed her. Those feelings scared her, but after a few deep breaths, they started to fade back into nothing.

"He killed me," she whispered to herself as a test. "I thought he cared about me, but he just killed me for no reason."

She did not feel it anymore. The hurt was gone, and there was no anger. That was good, because anger and hate would never last. Once she started feeling passionately about him, it would lead somewhere she did not want to go. It was better to feel nothing. And that meant that she could not let him kiss her again, which might be a problem.

The kiss had been a real shock in the first place. She knew that it was not real and that he was just humoring her, possibly just killing time too, but she was still shocked when he went in for the kiss. For the first few moments, she was able to enjoy the physical gratification of it, but then the feelings set in. She hoped the kiss had affected him even more, but there was no way to know.

When she came out of the bathroom, it was Sylar turn to take a shower. He did not try to continue their earlier conversation, just Elle knew that he would not. She was safe because he did not want to talk about any of that in front of Luke. While she waited for him, she felt like she should be packing, but they did not have much stuff, and none of it was hers. She felt antsy and wanted to do something, so she settled for making the bed.

Sylar took a much shorter shower than Luke had, which was a relief to Elle because she was eager to get out of that room. For some reason, it was beginning to feel like the walls were closing in on her. As soon as he opened the door, she said, "We need to leave. We shouldn't stay in one place for long. Especially since we're so close to where your father lives."

She probably should have waited a second before speaking, actually let him come out of the bathroom, because he seemed a little startled. He sidestepped her. "I agree. Luke, take the stuff out to the car, and I'll check out."

Elle started to leave with Luke, but she was jerked back and found that she was unable to move. "Not so fast," Sylar said. He pulled her back to where he was standing. "Why was it so important to you to be able to turn me down?"

Elle thought about how to answer that. It had nothing to do with feelings, and she knew that was why he was asking. "I want to know that you want it more than me, because then I'll know where the power balance lies."

"I can answer that right now." He was looming over her a little so that she had to tilt her head back to see his face. "I will always have more power than you."

"Maybe in life, but not in this 'relationship.'" She made airquotes around the word. "I mean I got you to kiss me."

"I only did that because-"

"I know why you did it," she interrupted with a smirk. "I still got you to kiss me. You spend so much time thinking about how to make me feel things, make me care about life again. Maybe you should be paying a little more attention to what you're feeling. Because that was quite a kiss."

She turned to flounce out of there with the upper hand, but he jerked her back again. He spoke in a low, tense tone. "The only thing I care about is fixing this mistake so that I can get rid of you."

He had pulled her even closer than the last time. Elle noted that he still smelled masculine, just in a different way. "Is that all? Because if you really want to get rid of me, there are easier ways to do it." She pushed her bangs away from her forehead. "Starting with the classics. Come on, it's a clean shot. I won't even fight you, just like last time. Of course, that would only fix it if the mistake was me still being alive when you wanted me dead." She dropped her hand. "But that's not what you meant. What exactly was the mistake?"

Sylar did not immediately respond to that. Instead, he swept her bangs to the side with his thumb. He stared at her forehead for a moment, but Elle did not find it intimidating. It was clear from the look on his face that he had no desire to kill her. In fact, if anything, he looked a little bit more like he was thinking about kissing her again. "The mistake was ever letting you in to begin with."

He removed his hand from her face and went around her to leave the room, picking up the key on his way out. Elle, who had been so keen to leave a few minutes before, spent a moment taking in the site of this victory. She might have suspected that she was bothering Sylar before, but for the first since coming back, she _knew_ that she had gotten under his skin. If she could get over her issues about kissing him, this would be easier than she thought.

Elle reached the door a few seconds behind Sylar, but he let it slam in her face. He was really just proving her point. He headed up to the lobby to check out, and she got into the backseat of the truck, since Luke had taken the front. She thought it was only fair to warn the kid that Sylar was bothered. "There is a slight possibility that he's going to steal a different car and leave us here. But I wouldn't worry too much because we have that." She gestured at the briefcase he stole from the government.

"What did you say to him?" This was more of an accusation than anything.

She shrugged her shoulders and tried to look innocent. "I just pointed out some uncomfortable truths. It's not my fault if he can't handle them."

"What were they?" Now Luke sounded curious.

Elle thought about how to answer that. She did not want to dissuade him from thinking that her history with Sylar was more involved than they were letting on, but she did not want to tell him anything either. She looked out the window to see Sylar walking back. "That I'm dead inside, and for all his trying, he still isn't. He still has those emotions that make him weak." After a second, she added, "Emotions I wish I could feel," even though that was, of course, a lie.

–

–

**Author's Note:** So if anger leads to hate, and hate leads to passion, and passion leads to love, then I'm pretty much saying that love is the dark side. Except love leads to fear, and fear leads to anger. So the dark side is really just a vicious cycle. (Yes, I'm making Star Wars jokes, as if you couldn't already tell that I was a dork.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note**: Three weeks? You deserve better than that. I'm kind of hitting the wall here, though. Sorry.

–

–

**Chapter 7:**

No matter what Sylar decided to do, he was going to need to be in Washington, D. C. to do it, so he headed east. He had two goals for that first day: steal another car and buy Elle clothes to sleep in, preferably something that would cover her entire body.

It did not take him much more than an hour to hit Billings, Montana. He would normally avoid a city like that with its traffic cameras, but it would be the perfect place to achieve both objectives. He stopped at a gas station, even though he still had a half tank and was not going to have the car much longer. He asked the guy at the next pump where the closest Walmart was and got directions.

When he parked in the Walmart lot, Elle looked around. "Why are we stopping here?"

Sylar unbuckled his seatbelt. "Because you need clothes."

Elle looked alarmed by this. "Oh, no. I appreciate the thought, but no."

Sylar was confused by her reaction. "Why not?"

She paused, like she knew he was not going to understand. "I don't wear clothes from Walmart."

Sylar supposed this was his fault for indulging that little tantrum over the cot. He got out and yanked open the door to the backseat. "There is no way I'm going to put up with you acting this prissy for the rest of the trip. So you can get out and either buy pajamas and clean underwear or be left behind."

Elle gave him an evil eye, but she pushed past him and headed for the store, muttering something about how she was not complaining about not having clothes.

Luke fell into step next to Sylar, with Elle several feet ahead of them. "For someone who doesn't like her very much, you sure are spending a lot of money on her," he observed.

Sylar did not think that he had spent any money on her up until that point, but then he remembered that he had given her money for dinner the night before. Still, he did not feel that Luke's observation was actually based on the facts. Luke was just seeing what he wanted to see. Sylar ignored him because that was the easiest thing to do.

After Elle stopped grimacing at the clothes, that portion of the shopping trip went pretty smoothly. There was only one incident where she insisted that she could not sleep in pants, but that was settled quickly. (She was going to have to learn to.) Then she said that she needed toiletries, her own deodorant and toothbrush at the very least.

On the way to those aisles, they passed the baby section. Elle stopped, transfixed by carseats and rattles. "I never had a baby," she said sadly as though this was just sinking in.

Sylar honestly could not tell whether that was something that really bothered her or another attempt to make him feel guilty. This was a little more worthy of guilt than damaged hair, but he was not going to let her get to him. "Well, I'm not going to give you one of those."

She looked at him, surprised. "It's too late now."

She was not lying. She really thought it was too late for her to have a baby. "No, it's not," he said, sounding more exasperated than he should have. "You're still young, Elle. You have plenty of time."

At first, she still looked surprised that he would say that. Then she laughed. "Right." She started to walk away.

Sylar had no idea what she meant by that. He wanted to ask, but he did not want to give her the impression that he cared about her or her reproductive issues. So he was really glad when Luke spoke up. "Didn't you tell me that you're twenty-five? Why can't you have children?"

Elle stopped in her tracks. She turned to look at Luke and Sylar. She thought about it, leaving them hanging for several seconds. "Yeah, I am young. I just don't know where I'm going to be nine months from now or nine months after I find a man who's willing to give me a..." She sighed and lowered her volume. "I don't really expect to be alive for that long. This all feels very temporary to me. So I'm not thinking about the next twenty-five years; right now, I'm just hoping to make it twenty-five days."

Sylar tried not to react to this. He killed her, and when he did that, it was with the intention that she would stay dead. He had purposefully cut her life short. So why should he care if her new life was also cut short? As long as he was not the one killing her, it was not his problem. He should just fix her while he could and let the rest of it work itself out.

He followed her to the toothbrush aisle, thinking about why he killed her in the first place. Usually when he killed someone, it was to get something he wanted. There had been a self-defense killing and a couple revenge killings or attempts, but neither of those fit the Elle situation. In fact, it was not clear to him why he had done it. When he tried to think about it now, it seemed like a very emotional response rather than anything rational. He was not sure if, after forgiving her at Pinehearst, he had ever really wanted her dead.

As long as he knew that he was not going to kill her again, none of that mattered. Whether he wanted her dead or not, she was now alive, through no action of his own. If for some reason, this world was going to reject her in the next month or two, he would still only be responsible for killing her once. He did not really believe that her life was any more temporary than anyone else's anyway. To let anything that she said bother him would just be giving her what she wanted.

–

In a newly stolen car, Sylar glanced back to see Elle texting in the backseat. She was fairly quiet for the rest of the day, not saying anything designed to annoy him or provoke him. Luke talked some, but Elle just texted.

They stopped for the night in southern South Dakota, in another sparsely populated town that made Sylar feel fortunate just to find a room. He did not even bother to ask if they had more than one room available because he did not want Elle to think that he was afraid to be alone with her. He could learn from the mistakes he made the night before and that morning. And Elle would be wearing pants this time.

The room they got that night had two proper beds, but that still left the question of who would be doubling up with whom. Since Sylar would never be comfortable having Elle and Luke share a bed, he would have to share with someone. Letting Elle have her own bed, which was really the most logical thing, would feel like he was rewarding her. Quite honestly, forced to choice, Sylar would rather bunk with Elle than Luke. He did not want to delve any deeper into the reasons for that, so he told himself it was because she smelled better.

When she got into the bed, Elle pulled the legs of her pajama pants as far up as they would go so that they were hiked up around her thighs. It was still much better than nothing. Sylar lay awake, thinking about her phone. There was probably a wealth of information in the archived texts and possibly a way to find Rebel without Elle's help. At the very least, Sylar should try to look at it. The problem was if he did get the information he wanted, and it made her presence unnecessary, then he would lose his excuse for keeping her around. He closed his eyes and tried not to dwell on it too much.

Morning came, and that was uneventful. Elle acted like a perfectly normal, rational person. She did not talk about the murder or make any allusions to being dead inside. The only strange thing was that she declined to partake of the free continental breakfast, even though Sylar made it clear that that was the only breakfast they would have. She had not eaten anything when they stopped for lunch before either. When he thought about it, he realized that he had not seen her eat anything in over twenty-four hours.

In the lobby, Sylar had Elle check out while he and Luke grabbed a quick bite to eat. Once they were away from her, looking over the muffins and fruit, Sylar asked Luke if Elle had eaten at that restaurant near his father's house. Luke's response was, "Yeah, but barely."

That was not what Sylar was hoping to hear. He turned to watch her chat up the clerk. He wondered if she was really so dedicated to making him feel guilty as to starve herself or if this really meant that she had no appetite for food. He wanted to find a casual way to ask that would not convey to her that he felt in any way bad about killing her.

As they all headed out to the car, Elle asked if she could drive. Sylar said no.

Elle pouted a little, but then she called shotgun. She and Luke argued for a minute over whether she could handle the running briefcase and why Luke even needed to be in the front seat to do it. Sylar cut them off by making a ruling that it was Elle's turn to ride in the front seat. Doing this made him feel like their parent, which was not something he enjoyed.

Pulling out onto the road, Sylar said to Elle, "So I noticed you're not eating."

The corner of her mouth twitched a little, and he could tell that she was trying not to smile. He continued before she was able to weave whatever lie she was going to. "So I started thinking about how you're a zombie. And you know, if what you're really craving is brains, I might be able to provide those."

Now, Elle really did smile. "Wow, it's like the perfect partnership." She pretended to consider it. "I don't think I want eat brains. I just... would rather not eat right now."

Sylar noted how carefully she chose her words. "Not really a good way to lie about that, is there?"

She played dumb. "No, I _really_ don't want to eat brains."

Sylar let it go because he knew that she still had her appetite. Now he could just wait to see how far she would take this. She had to know that he knew, but Sylar hoped that she would keep it going just to spite him.

Several hours later, at the drive-through of a fast food restaurant, Sylar asked Elle what she wanted. She clenched her jaw defiantly and said, "I'll just have a water."

–

The third night, the sleeping arrangements were set. Sylar still was not happy with the way that had worked out, but he did not think there was a better alternative. So he climbed into bed with Elle, assuring himself that he could handle sleeping next to her. He had already done it successfully twice before.

He woke up around two in the morning, unable to remember the details of the dream he had, but knowing that it had been somewhat sexual and that Elle was involved. He looked over at Elle, believing that it was entirely her fault. She was sleeping peacefully, completely unaware that she had gotten into his head and made him dream about her.

Sylar closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep, but he was wide awake. He sat up. There was nothing to do in that hotel room, but watch Elle sleep, which he was not going to do. Trying not to disturb Elle or Luke, he pulled on a pair of pants and left the room to clear his head.

–

Outside the hotel room, two government agents watched Sylar leave the room using night vision binoculars. "That's really him," one said in amazement.

The other agent pulled out his phone to call his supervisor. "Danko, we found Sylar. He's staying at a motel with a teenager and a woman, but he just left them alone, to go for a walk apparently. What do you want us to do? Should we follow him?"

He listened for a minute. Then he hung up. "He said not to engage with Sylar. He wants us to go in, get the other two while Sylar's gone, and get out of here."

The first agent was still looking through his binoculars. "All right. There's no sign of him. Let's go."

–

–

**Author's Note**: If you think about it, everyone's life is temporary. (Except Sylar and Claire.) So that kept bothering me, but I think it's clear what Elle meant.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** I thought a lot about this. I decided to go in the direction that this is about to go in because I think what really sets this story apart from Night After Night (because I worry about being too similar to it) is that this one is much darker. I think this chapter is still PG-13, but it may push the boundaries a little.

–

–

**Chapter 8:**

Using a key card they had gotten from the clerk, the two agents quietly opened the door to the motel room. They each chose a target and set up their taser shots.

The boy stayed unconscious, but the woman reacted to the taser charge in a way these agents had never seen. She seized with a visible vein of blue electricity running through her, and then she pulled the charge out of her side and said, "Ow."

The first agent, the one who shot the boy, placed a shunt on the kid's chest and shoved the tube up his nose. The second agent shot the woman again, and again she seized and then pulled out the charge. "Stop doing that," she said.

–

Elle was awakened by a tremor of electricity that was not her own. At first, she was afraid that she had lost control of her ability again, but then she felt the charge sticking out of her side. As soon as she pulled it out, she was shot again. She opened her eyes, but it was dark and she could only make out two shadowy figures. She assumed they were from the government.

The agent who had been tasering her dropped that gun and pulled out a real one. This was unexpected, and Elle did not know how to handle it. It was not a good idea to kill these men. Rebel frowned on anything that would make evolved humans look like monsters or terrorists. Staring into the barrel of a gun, she wondered where Sylar was.

The other agent walked over, also with a gun trained on her. He turned on the lamp, which allowed Elle to get a better look at them. Although she knew that some Company agents had gone to work for the government, she did not recognize these two. She was not sure if that was a good thing or not. Having two guns pointed at her decreased her chances of taking out both of them without getting herself shot and possibly killed. She decided to see where this was going.

The agent who did not shoot her with a taser hovered over her. He was shorter than the other one, stocky and compact. "Looks like Sylar's whore is one of them." He poked her with the barrel of his gun. "What is it you can do? Healing?"

If they did not know who she was, she was not going to enlighten them. She did not say anything. She was trying to think, but it was difficult. Maybe being caught was not the worst thing that could happen. It depended how Sylar would react.

"Come on, I know you can talk." He turned to his partner. "Maybe we should shoot her and find out."

Elle could not think of any way out of this without someone getting hurt. They already knew she was an evolved human, and it was really too late to pretend that she did not know what was happening. "Please don't shoot me."

The shorter agent pushed the gun deeper into her stomach. The area was still raw from the taser charge going in, and it hurt. "If you cooperate, maybe I won't have to. Where is Sylar going?"

"I don't know," she said, clenching her teeth at the pain.

The agent rolled his eyes at this. "Where did you meet him?"

She hesitated. "I don't know." Elle knew that was a stupid answer even before the agent slapped her. She just was not sure what kind of lie she was supposed to tell. She was too tired to think, and she did not want to have to deal with this. Although the taser did not knock her out, it left her drained.

The agent moved the gun to her forehead. Elle simply blinked at him, although she was terrified. She reminded herself that she was prepared to die, that, in a lot of ways, she was already dead. The agent was perturbed by her lack of reaction to having a gun pressed against her head. "I'll pull the trigger."

Elle did not doubt that, but she was having trouble remembering what she was even supposed to tell him. The other agent had been standing at the foot of the bed, but now he came around to stand next to his partner. "Listen, let's just put the shunt on her and get out of here."

"No, I know how to make her talk." He pulled the taller agent closer. "Hold the gun on her."

There was a moment there when Elle could have acted. The tall one was hesitant, and the short one was slightly distracted. She knew that would probably be the last chance she would get to take both of them out. But she was sluggish with fatigue, fear, and the remnants of her death, and it was making her indecisive. The moment passed, and she had another gun pointed at her head, not touching her this time, which eliminated the possibility of using the metal as a conductor. She wondered how the short one was going to make her talk. She knew that she could withstand a reasonable amount of torture. Of course, if they thought she could heal, the torture might be worse than any she had encountered before. She wondered then if she could get away with pretending to be Claire. Blonde, young, healing ability. That would be a good way out of this, since she knew Claire had a free pass. It really all hinged on whether these two had seen Claire before.

It would still be a long-shot even if they did not know what Claire looked like. She was trying to determine how the short, aggressive one would react if he caught her in that lie when she realized what the guy had planned. The second he pulled at her pajama bottoms, Elle threw caution to the wind. "You don't want to do this," she said calmly. "I'm Claire Bennet. You work for both of my fathers."

The agent with the gun put up his hands. "Dude, no. I'm not messing with Bennet's daughter."

Here was another moment where there was no gun pointed at her. This time she had the motivation to act, but it would blow her cover as Claire, which appeared to be working, at least partially.

The shorter agent gestured for his partner to point the gun again. "She's not Bennet's daughter. She's still in California with agents watching her." He turned back to Elle and unzipped his pants. "But you know about Claire. What else do you know?"

Elle did not say anything. He climbed onto the bed with her and pinned her hands over her head. "Being with a guy like Sylar, I bet you like it rough."

Elle stared back at him, unwilling to confirm or deny this. She thought about pointing out that forcing himself on her would not make her any more inclined to talk about what she knew, but she did not think that was really the goal for him anymore, so she kept her mouth shut.

Elle considered what was happening to her in a very detached way. She did not struggle or move much or cry. She knew that she did not have to care at all about this if she did not want to. The agent was slightly attractive and the sex was only mildly painful. She felt that it was wrong, that there was no possible way she could even remotely enjoy what was happening. She could always shock him, but she had trouble deciding whether that was even worth it when there was a good chance she would be shot in the head immediately afterwards. She closed her eyes to see if that would help, but she was unable to separate herself from the reality. The thoughts going through her head were confusing, like a particularly difficult psychological puzzle. Did she feel anything? Did she care? Would it really be so bad to die again?

–

As Sylar returned to the room, he noticed that the light was on. That did not necessarily mean that anything was wrong, but he pushed open the door cautiously. He found Elle on the bed with her eyes squeezed shut and a man on top of her and another man pointing a gun at her. Sylar stopped in the doorway, assessing this scene.

The man with the gun looked appropriately scared to see him. "Don't come any closer, or I swear to God I'll shoot her."

Sylar broke his neck with the flick of a finger, and that man fell to the floor, dead. Then Sylar lifted the other man off Elle and slammed him against the wall. Elle opened her eyes, but she did not say anything. Sylar looked to the other bed to see Luke hooked up to a shunt. Even before seeing that, Sylar knew these were government agents, just from the clothes they were wearing. He walked up to the agent that was still alive. The man's pants were around his ankles, so Sylar kept his eyes north of the equator. "How many more of you are out there?"

He stared back defiantly. "You people are like animals, and we're going to hunt you down like animals."

Sylar applied some pressure to his neck. "That's not what I asked."

The agent was bold but stupid. "They're coming," he said, like that was supposed to scare Sylar.

All that really told Sylar was that there was no one else out there right now. Considering how out of the way they were, and that human agents could only travel at human speeds, it might take quite a while for others to come. "Hmm, then we better hurry up here." He turned to Elle. "Kill him."

Elle sat up, covering herself with the sheet. She looked surprised. "Me?"

It seemed like an easy equation to Sylar. The agent tried to rape Elle, she should get to kill him. Thinking about how she never really did anything to him, Sylar thought that maybe she did not understand the concept of retribution anymore. He was handling what happened there that night the best way he knew how, with clinical detachment. He did not feel the right to be angry on her behalf. In order to hold onto his own rage, he needed her to get angry. "Yes, I'm going to let you kill him, since he..." Sylar did not really want to say it out loud.

"I don't think she wants to kill me," the agent said from the wall. "She didn't put up any kind of fight. Looked to me like she was enjoying herself."

Sylar did not even bother to get angry at that ridiculous lie. He had his back to the agent, but he turned his head to address him. "If you think that's what it looks like when a woman's enjoying herself, I almost feel sorry for you." He turned back to Elle. "What's it going to be?" His tone was a little too harsh, like he was attacking the victim, but that was what he had to do to keep himself from attacking the agent and taking that opportunity away from Elle.

The agent kept talking. "You weren't here. You didn't see how she begged for it."

Elle shrugged apologetically, but, with or without a lie detector, Sylar knew that was not true. He pulled the dead agent's gun into his hand. "You're going to die either way." Sylar assumed the agent had figured that out. "I bet right now, you're praying that I shoot you, because it will be so much worse if she gets her hands on you." The agent tried to speak again, but Sylar held his mouth shut.

Under the sheet, Elle pulled on her pajama pants. She got out of the bed. "It's not that big a deal. Let's just get out of here."

Sylar really hoped that she did not mean that the way it sounded. "It is a big deal, Elle."

Elle sighed. "I just don't care that much."

He waited for some indication that she was lying, but it did not come. Maybe that was better. He should not try to force her to feel this. Except that it probably would not have even happened to the extent that it did if she had cared enough to try to stop it. "Someday, when you've been alive for more than twenty-five days and you realize that this isn't temporary, you will care. And you are going to regret just lying there and letting him take advantage of your emotional state. And you're going to wish that you did something to him. I'm just giving you that opportunity."

Elle looked at the agent as though she was trying to imagine such a day. She shook her head. "Will I wish that I did something to you? Because what you did to me was just as bad."

Sylar could see how what he did might have even been worse. That was the main reason he did not feel the right to be as angry as he was, but still he hated the comparison. "That's a matter of opinion," he said.

She nodded earnestly. "Yeah, mine. It happened to me. At least when he tried to have sex with me, he didn't pretend that it meant something."

Sylar thought about what she said because he was not sure they were talking about the same thing anymore. In doing so, he must have lost focus on keeping the agent's mouth shut because he was able to say, "Sounds like she likes me better."

That sparked Elle into action. Apparently, she was sick of the innuendo. "But, fine, I'll do it." She walked up to the agent. "Don't worry, we're cool. I'm just doing this for him."

She ran her hands up and down the agent's arms like she was trying to decide how to kill him. She looked at one of the taser guns on the floor. "Have you ever wondered how much electricity the human body can take? Because I know the answer." She smiled at the agent, seeming to change her mind, and pressed up against him. "On second thought, let's see how jealous we can make him before he shoots you."

Sylar rolled his eyes. There was something seriously wrong with her. She did not even seem to care that the agent had called her an animal and tried to dehumanized her through rape. All she cared about was playing her twisted little games. This was much different than her starving herself. How far was he supposed to let her go with a man who tried to rape her?

Sylar revised his opinion of her when she kissed the agent. The blue sparks and the muffled protests told him that she did intend to kill the man herself, and better than that, she cared enough to torture him. After she pulled away, the agent breathed heavily, working his way through the pain.

Elle smiled, looking like a cat with a mouse. "You like it rough, right?" She went down on her knees, trailing her hand down his chest and stomach, giving him small shocks on her way down.

At that point, Sylar had to look away, but he could hear the agent screaming. All he could think was if that was what Elle meant by killing someone with sex, it was even more horrible than he imagined. It did give him another great reason not to want to have sex with her, though.

He looked back when Elle said, "Okay." She stood, wiping her mouth and making faces. "You can kill him now."

Sylar focused on her face rather than the charred nether regions in front of him. He was surprised someone could even survive what she had done, but apparently she did know the limits. "Why don't you just finish it?"

She ran her hand over the agent's chest. "Oh, he's right. I don't want to _kill_ him."

The agent spit at her. "Crazy bitch!"

She pressed up against him again. "If we had more time, I could play with you for hours, but..." She pulled her hand back to deliver the final, fatal blast. Sylar let the agent fall to the floor. "We don't," she said to his dead body.

Elle smacked her lips some more. "I need to brush my teeth." She headed for the vanity area.

"Elle..." Now that the agent was dead, Sylar felt the need to say something to her, but nothing good came to mind.

She turned around to look at him. "We don't have to talk about it."

He said the only thing that came to his mind. "It _did_ mean something." He did not realize that he had even been thinking about that.

She smiled sadly. "That just makes it worse." She stared at him for a few seconds. Then she closed her eyes with a sigh, and when she opened them, she said. "Wake up Luke. We have to get out of here."

–

–

**Author's Note**: This chapter makes me a little uncomfortable. I am very loath to vilify law enforcement, and obviously, rape needs to be handled very carefully. I've seen rape done very poorly in fanfiction. (One story in particular comes to mind where the victim was reacting in a _very_ unhealthy way, and the author did not see that.) All I want to say about that is Elle is not necessarily going to deal with it in the best or healthiest way. She has some problems, from before she died and after, and that's going to affect how she handles what happened. It is not my intention to offend anyone, especially a rape survivor.

I have no idea if the science of this chapter works. Tasers deliver an electric shock, so it's possible she wouldn't be effected the same way. But I have no way of knowing whether that agent would be able to survive what she did. So I hope your disbelief suspends that far.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9:**

Sylar went over to where Luke was lying on the bed, and Elle went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Sylar did not think anything of that at first. He just removed the shunt from Luke's nose and waited for him to wake up.

After about a minute, as Luke was stirring, Sylar heard the shower running. That was when it occurred to him that the sink was outside the bathroom. Sylar went to the door, leaving Luke with no explanation for the two dead bodies, one of which was still half naked. He knocked, but there was no answer.

He hesitated before knocking again. "Elle," he called. "If you don't say something, I'm going to come in."

He heard Elle say, "I'm fine," but it was a lie. One part of Sylar wanted to leave it alone; the last thing he should do was walk in on her in the shower. But there was another part that was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it to finally hit her what had happened, and he did not want her to be alone when it did. Although it was not that unusual for her to shower before leaving, he felt that there was more to this. Just the fact that she was now lying when she said she was fine meant that she was starting to come to terms with the attempted rape.

"I'm coming in anyway." He pushed open the door slowly. There were no clothes on the floor, so Sylar had a good idea what he was going to find behind the shower curtain. "I'm opening the curtain unless you say something," he warned.

Her response came back, "Whatever," which was something, but he still gently pushed the curtain back just far enough to see her face. She was sitting in the tub, fully dressed in her pajamas, holding her toothbrush in one hand. The water was hitting her about mid-chest. She did not look at him.

"Oh, Elle," he breathed. He pulled the other side of the curtain open and turned off the water. Then he pushed the shower curtain completely open and sat on the toilet seat.

He waited for Elle to say something. For several seconds, she stared straight ahead at the faucet. Then she looked at the toothbrush in her hand. "It occurred to me that I needed to wash off more than just my teeth."

"Elle, I--" She shook her head, and Sylar did not continue.

She finally looked at him. Her eyes were not red; she had not been crying. If anything, they were a little dull. Whatever trance she had been in was gone. "It's over," she said with some authority. "I don't want to talk about it."

He wanted to respect that, but there was something he needed to say to her. "This whole time, I've been wanting you to feel something so that my obligation to you would be canceled, but... I didn't want it to happen like this."

She stared back at him without saying anything for a few moments. Finally, she said. "I know. Don't worry; I'm fine."

That was still a lie, but he would not have been able to tell from her tone. "It's okay to admit that you're not fine. What happened to you--"

She cut him off. "I don't want to talk about it!" She slid deeper into the tub and covered her face with her hands, letting the toothbrush drop onto her shirt. She rubbed her eyes and then her temples. "If you insist on sitting there and talking, just talk about something else."

Sylar tried to think of something else to say, but he found it impossible to think of anything other than what had just happened. "What do you want to talk about?"

She looked up at him, annoyed. "I don't want to talk about anything. I'm not the one..." She sighed and went back to staring at the faucet. She played with the stopper with her foot. "You said it meant something to you. What did it mean?"

"It--" He hesitated. That was not an easy question. When he did not answer right away, she looked up at him with questioning eyes. He thought about looking into those big, blue eyes at the Canfield house and again on the beach. With her in such a vulnerable state, he did not see the harm in exaggerating just a little bit. "It meant everything to me. That was one of the best days I've had in a while." He felt that he might have gone a little too far with that.

"Huh." She shook her head a little. "I've had better. Days, I mean. I've—I've had better days."

She had turned a little pink in embarrassment, and Sylar had to stop himself from smiling. "Well, yeah. I lost my abilities, had my throat slit, found out that everyone in my life was lying to me about my parents, killed off my redemption. And yet... I can't remember the last time anything happened to me that was as good as making love to you."

At first, his words had the effect that he wanted. She looked happier and distracted. But then she laughed. "That's not true or you wouldn't have killed me. But I appreciate the effort. You don't have to feel bad about this one though. It wasn't your fault."

She just did not see it. "I was supposed to be protecting you, fixing you, and instead..." He took a deep breath. "This wouldn't have happened if I was here."

Elle's eyes grew wide, like she had just realized that. "No, it wouldn't have," she murmured.

The way she said that felt like a punch in the stomach. Sylar wished he had not pointed that out to her. Maybe she had never really been his, maybe she always belonged to the Company, and maybe she still belonged to and with Company agents. But despite all the attempts to kill her, he had really cared about her, and he could never stand to see her in pain like this. This was different than last time. It was going to take longer to fix, and he did not even know where to start. "If you need to take this out on someone, if what you did back there was not enough, I can still take it all." He did not mean to imply that he would let her do to him what she had just done to the agent. He only meant it in the same way he meant it at Pinehearst. He figured any misunderstanding about that could be cleared up later.

Elle moved to stand. Sylar gave her his hand to help her up. "I'll keep that in mind," she said. "But I'm soaking wet right now, so that'll have to wait. We need to leave anyway."

When Sylar opened the door, he found Luke on the other side, clearly eavesdropping. He did not worry about what Luke might have overheard. "There are more agents coming. We need to get on the road."

Luke looked behind Sylar at Elle, who was wringing out her hair in the tub. "What happened here?"

Sylar tossed Elle the shopping bag with her clothes in it and pulled Luke out of the bathroom so that she could dry off and get dressed in private. He looked at the main part of the motel room, the two dead bodies on the floor. "I went for a walk, to clear my head. And while I was gone, two agents came in." He realized that he did not know the details. "I don't exactly know why they didn't t knock out Elle, but one of the agents tried to... Or really he did..." It occurred to him then that it was not so much an attempted rape as an uncompleted one. He tried to push the word rape past his lips, but he could not bring himself to say it. "He sexually assaulted her. That's what's left of him." Sylar pointed to the body.

Luke looked carefully at the agent. "Did she...?"

It was not difficult to figure out what Luke's unfinished question was referring to. "Yeah, just as horrifying as I thought."

Sylar turned back to see Luke looking at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. "How, um, how are you doing with this?" Luke asked.

Even if Sylar assumed that Luke overheard everything that was said in the bathroom, he was not going to talk about it with Luke. "I'm fine. I wasn't even here." He held up a finger to Luke. "Elle does not want to talk about it, so don't bring it up unless she does."

Luke nodded in understanding. "What do we do now?"

"Now, we need to look at the briefcase to figure out how much time we have." Sylar looked around. "Where is it?"

Luke got a panicked look on his face. "I left it in the car."

Elle's voice come from the bathroom. "Uh-oh, if you're not careful, he's going to find himself a new sidekick." She walked out, wearing jeans and the shirt Sylar had given her with the bullet holes in it. Her hair was pulled back in a damp, sloppy knot. She did not quite look like herself. Sylar understood why she would want to dress down and wear a baggy shirt, but the contrast with her usual provocative self was jarring. She pointed back at the bathroom. "They're really wet, so I think we should just leave those clothes behind."

Sylar nodded, pretty sure that was not the real reason she wanted to leave the clothes behind. She looked from Sylar's face to Luke's and narrowed her eyes. "I don't want your pity. I am stronger than both of you, and I am handling this better than either of you could imagine." She turned and headed for the door with her bag slung over her shoulder.

Sylar was already dressed from when he took his walk, and Luke was dressed enough for the car. So Sylar telekinetically gathered up the other bag and followed her over. "Let me go first."

Elle put her free hand up to show that she had no problem with that. Sylar stepped out of the room, seeing nothing and no one else in the night. It was times like this that he really missed the enhanced hearing. He scanned the view in front of him, doing the best he could with regular hearing and regular eyesight. With his mind, he unlocked the doors to the car they came in, and then he ushered his companions out one by one. He waited until they were both in the car before sliding into the driver's seat.

Once Luke finally had the briefcase, they were able to find out that there was just one government van in range, the one their attackers had come in. Luke apologize profusely for leaving it behind, mostly to Elle. It got annoying really fast, but that was generally true of most things Luke did. Sylar was starting to think that they should have just left him hooked up to the shunt. He pointed out, as calmly as he could, that having the briefcase in the room probably would not have changed anything.

Sylar started east, but after about ten minutes the briefcase started beeping to let them know there were agents in range, coming from the east. So he turned off the main road and headed southwest. He continued in that direction for the next few hours while Elle and Luke fell asleep.

At about eight in the morning, after five hours of driving in silence through boring landscapes, Sylar pulled into a drive-through restaurant and woke them up. "Does anybody want breakfast?"

Elle stretched and rolled her head around. "God, yes, I'm starving."

Once they were finished ordering, Elle offered to drive. "You didn't get much sleep last night," she reminded Sylar.

She was right about that, but that was not why Sylar decided to let her drive this time. He was not even tired; he just wanted to be able to give Elle something she wanted. So after she ate her breakfast sandwich and sucked down her orange juice, Sylar pulled off the side of the road and switched seats with Elle.

--

--

**Author's Note:** Given earlier author notes, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I had not fully formed the plot yet when I started this. And then I was leaving it open in the early chapters to try to use the canon Rebel, which did not work out. So I'm not a hundred percent on who Rebel is right now, but I do have someone in mind. This is probably a strange request, but I'd like to hear what people's guesses are just to see if I'm on track. And if reading what has been said about Rebel (which must be true because of the lie detector) you think it _has_ to be an original character, feel free to let me know that too. You might be right. Or don't guess; that's cool too. No pressure.

Either way, Rebel should be revealed in Chapter 11.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10:**

At ten a.m., photographs were slapped down on Noah Bennet's desk. He looked up to see Danko standing over him. "What's this?"

Danko came around to the front of the desk. "Two agents named Wolski and Reynolds found Sylar at a motel in Kansas last night. The clerk said he was traveling with a woman and a teenage boy. That's Reynolds." He nodded at the photograph on top. "The next one is of Wolski."

"Why would you send just two agents to go in after Sylar?" Bennet asked as he flipped to the next photograph. He was not prepared for what he saw of Wolski. "Oh! Wow."

Danko raised his eyebrows. "Sylar was out of the room. They were supposed to get in, get the other two, and get out. I'm not sure how well they followed instructions."

Bennet shook his head. "I've warned you about Sylar. He is--"

"A sick bastard. You're the one who claims to be in his head. Why would he do that?" He gestured at Wolski's body.

Bennet looked at the photos again. "He wouldn't. Not without a reason. I've seen every crime scene, and there is nothing even close to this." He raised his head. "What do we know about the woman?"

Danko shrugged. "Mid-twenties, blond."

"Then I don't think Wolski followed your orders very well at all." He pushed the photos away from him. "I think he took off his own pants. Sylar came back, caught Wolski with the woman, and... this happened."

Danko was giving him a scrutinizing look. "So Sylar has a girlfriend. Any ideas who she might be?"

Bennet thought about it. "No, but she's an idiot to get involved with him because Sylar has a tendency to kill his girlfriends."

After a few seconds, Danko nodded. "Well, let me know if you think of anything else." Then he walked away.

Bennet waited until Danko was really gone, and then he looked at the photos again. He was pretty sure Sylar was not the one who did that to Wolski.

–

Elle continued on the same road southwest until she hit I-40 in the Texas panhandle. She knew that Sylar wanted to stay off the interstate to avoid cameras, but she was driving now, and the government was not looking for her. Stopped at the junction, she looked over at Sylar. He had his eyes closed, and Elle decided to believe that meant he trusted her judgment. So she took the turn onto I-40 East because that was the fastest way to get to Washington.

After a while, Sylar opened his eyes. "Hey," Elle said. "I don't want to alarm you, but there's been a cop behind us for the last five miles. And this is a stolen car."

Sylar looked back at the cop car in his side view mirror. "Well, if he hasn't pulled us over yet, it's probably okay. Take the next exit, and if he follows you, we'll deal with him then."

It was several more miles before they hit an exit. Elle drove carefully, setting the cruise control at exactly four miles over the speed limit so as not to draw suspicion. She kept hoping the cop would pass her, but he stayed behind her in the right lane the entire way.

"What possessed you to get on the interstate?" Sylar asked.

Elle shook her head. "I just want to get to Washington so that we can get this over with and figure out what we're going to do with the rest of our lives." After a beat, she added, "Separately," because she was afraid that was not implied in what she said. "I want to get it over with so I can figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life."

Elle finally came across the exit, and the cop continued down the interstate. Sylar was right; after ten or so miles, the odds were that the cop did not know anything. She pulled into a gas station. "Since we're stopped, do you mind if I use the restroom?"

"No," he said as though he was not sure why he would mind.

As she got out of the car, Elle felt her pocket to make sure that her cell phone was in it. All she really wanted to use the restroom for was to have a private conversation. She did not want to tell Sylar that though, because she did not want him asking questions.

It was the kind of gas station restroom that only had one stall, which was perfect. Elle locked the door and dialed the number. She expected Bennet to be angry that she was making contact, but he answered the phone saying, "Hi, I am so glad you called me."

"Really?"

There was a long pause during which it sound like Bennet was walking. "No, I said it was Sandra calling so I could take it in private. _You_ should not be calling me at all, but I think I know why you are."

Elle sighed. She had really hoped that he would have no idea about what had happened. "Yeah, of course you do. Was it part of the plan?"

"What exactly happened?"

She took that as a maybe. "One of your agents tried to force himself on me. Sylar walked in, put a stop to that, and I killed the guy. How much of that was in the plan?"

"None of it!" He sounded really offended. "Elle, we're not—Do you really think Rebel and I would set you up to be raped? What kind of people do you think we are?"

Elle wished she could say that she was able to rule out out their involvement completely. She actually had trouble imagining that Rebel would do something like that, but Bennet was the one with agents at his disposal. That was why she had to call him instead of Rebel. "That's the problem. I know what kind of person you are."

Elle could almost see Bennet thinking about it on the other end. "Okay," he said. "Well, here's something you can believe. I would never have set you up like that because it's only going to make you unpredictable."

"Actually, it's working out pretty well for you. Sylar just feels, oh, so guilty that he wasn't there to stop it in time. And then we had a really nice moment where he tried to comfort me, and he's really started to warm up to me now. Isn't that what you wanted?"

There was another pause. "That doesn't mean that I wanted this to happen. But obviously, if we can use this to our advantage--"

Elle laughed sarcastically. "Yes! That's exactly what I want to do. I want to use..." Elle did not even know how to refer to it. "...it to _your_ advantage."

"Don't forget about what's in it for you. You're not doing this for me or Rebel. This is about getting revenge on the man who killed you and your father."

Elle slouched against the wall. "I told you; I don't care about any of that."

"Good," Bennet said in a way that made it sound like she had played right into his hand. "Then you don't care that he just saved you from your rapist, you don't care about any of the nice things he might have said when he was comforting you, and you don't care about the feelings that you used to have for him. You can't have it both ways. Either you're a soulless zombie who is going to do what Rebel and I want or you care. Which is it?"

Elle looked up to see her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She had not really looked at herself since the incident. She walked over to the mirror without saying a word to Bennet. Even though nothing she saw in the reflection looked different, she barely recognized herself. Somehow the individual pieces were not coming together in the same way.

When he did not get an answer from her, Bennet changed his tack. "Even if you don't care, you still need to take responsibility for ending the mess we made with Sylar."

Elle pulled the hair tie out and ran her hand through her still damp hair. She knew that she cared about some things again. What happened in that motel room had snapped humanity back into her, and she was never going to be the same soulless zombie again. "Either way, you'll get what you want. Once I start to care, I'll hate him. And then I'll kill him for you." In her mind, she added, _Or die trying_.

"For all of us. For the good of everyone." Bennet did not seem as confident in her resolve as he once was. "Don't call me here again. From now on, if you have something to say to me, you go through Rebel."

Elle was still mesmerized by her reflection. "Wait, Noah, do you see me as human?" She realized how ridiculous a question that was. "Never mind. You don't see any of us as human." She felt the need to ensure his own resolve with a half truth. "When the taser charge didn't work they thought I could heal. So I pretended to be Claire, and he did it anyway. You should look into what kind of people you're employing."

There was silence on the other end. "That's exactly why I'm working with Rebel now. I don't employ anyone. I'm not in charge here, and this isn't what I wanted this agency to be. I wanted it to be like the company, but modified. I wanted to work with your kind. One of us and one of... you. Of course I see you as human, much more than anyone else at this agency."

He had given her more than she expected. In lieu of saying goodbye, Elle said, "Don't worry, Noah, I won't contact you directly again." She snapped the phone shut and put it back in her pocket. Now she needed a way to explain why she had been in the bathroom for so long. She needed to cry.

It was difficult for Elle to cry. She tried to relive it, but she just felt numb. She cared. She was scared and broken, but numb. The tears were not coming and she was just wasting more time in the restroom. She left, knowing how to handle it.

Back at the car, before Sylar could even ask his question, Elle held up her hand and pursed her lips. "I still don't want to talk about it," she said with a very believable hitch in her voice. She gave a smile that made it look like she was trying to be brave and told him he could drive. Real tears were not necessary at all.

–

After he hung up with Elle, Bennet called Rebel. "We might have a problem. The ice queen is melting."


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** As indicated below, this is a flashback chapter. I believe it will be the only one. (In that first paragraph, I want to call them good men, but Parkman kind of ruins it with having pulled this crap before. Although I guess Suresh has had problems too.)

--

--

**Chapter 11**: (Flashback)

Even before Noah Bennet was kidnapped by Peter Petrelli, Mohinder Suresh, and Matt Parkman, he knew that this new government agency was seriously flawed. It was just the kidnapping, seeing what these mostly good men had been reduced to, that made him realize that he was on the wrong side of this fight. The agency could not simply be fixed, Danko could not be convinced. It needed to be stopped, rebuilt, and maybe the government needed to be taken completely out of the equation. Bennet knew of only one person who was working to achieve the same goals. He just did not know where to find that person. So he went to Angela Petrelli.

Angela welcomed Bennet's decision to resolve his split focus on the side of evolved humans. However, she warned him that Rebel would be more skeptical and less welcoming. All Bennet wanted was a meeting, a chance to discuss it with this Rebel. Angela did not tell Bennet Rebel's identity, only that he had his reasons to be reluctant. She set up a meeting, but told Bennet not to be surprised if Rebel did not show up.

At the time of the meeting, Rebel did leave Bennet waiting for a long time. Eventually, Bennet gave up and left. A few minutes into the drive, Claude Rains appeared in the passenger's seat of Bennet's car. He looked different than before, not just older, but scruffier. "I hear you've had a change of heart since we last met."

There was a time when Bennet had been used to Claude popping up out of nowhere, but that was no longer the case. He swerved a little and then righted himself. "So you're Rebel." It was not a question.

Claude ignored that. "I have trouble believing it myself, but Angela is sure that you're on the up and up."

Claude would probably be harder to convince of Bennet's sincerity than anyone. They had a longer and rockier history than Bennet did with anyone else. "I am. This is not what I signed up for. I wanted to help people, save lives."

"I helped people, and you tried to kill me for it."

Bennet thought back to that time to try to remember where Claude was coming from. "You were right back then. About Claire, about protecting some people from the Company. I understand that now. I can see that the Company was flawed. But much, much more than that, I can see that this agency now is flawed."

Claude did not look impressed. Bennet went on. "I've done what I had to do to protect Claire. Now I want to help you protect others too. It's not right to let good people, human beings, be rounded up like cattle and drugged into unconsciousness just so long as it doesn't affect Claire. That's a point that has been driven home to me recently." He still did not say anything. "Couldn't you use a man on the inside?"

Claude scoffed. "I can get on the inside of any building I want, Noah. What do you want in return?"

"Nothing." he answered. He could tell that Claude was skeptical. "All I want is to get back to doing the good work we were doing before. Flawed or not, the Company served a purpose. There were dangerous people out there who needed to be stopped, and we stopped them. People like that are still out there, and not even this agency is equipped to handle them. For example, Sylar has cut through two teams like they were nothing. An agency that can't stop him and locks up people like Peter Petrelli is useless." He brought up Peter now because it seemed on that rooftop the year before that Peter and Claude had some sort of a connection. Right then something occurred to Bennet, but he needed to be careful about how he approached it.

Claude shook his head. "Sylar was after my time, but I understand he's a bit of an obsession of yours."

Bennet was glad that he had stayed on the subject of Sylar, because he did not know how he would bring it up again if the conversation moved on. "It's not an obsession, it's a necessity. He is one of the most dangerous evolved humans I have ever seen, and he needs to be put down, the sooner, the better. The problem is we can't get anyone close enough to do it." He pretended like it had just come to him in that moment. "But you could get close enough."

Claude laughed. "Just because he was after my time doesn't mean I don't know about him. There are a number of abilities he could possess that would allow that to backfire, and I would be dead. No, you need someone who could actually get close to him."

Bennet sighed. Claude had a point about it backfiring, but Bennet found it unlikely. Still, he did not want to push this too hard. Sylar was not the point of this meeting. So he just said, "Sylar would see through that."

Bennet expected that to be it, but Claude said, "He didn't see through it when Elle did it."

That was a good point. Elle got plenty close enough to kill Sylar. If only they had known then what they knew now. He realized that was well after Claude's time too. "How did you know about that?"

"Elle came to see me, after her father was killed. She wanted to know about the testing, about everything her father had done. And she told me about Sylar, what you two—what the Company did to him."

Bennet marveled that Elle had managed to find Claude when no one else had been able to. "Well, Elle's dead now. Sylar killed her a couple months back."

Again, Bennet thought that would be the end of the discussion. In fact, he hoped it would. He did not like to think about Elle's death. But instead of changing the subject back to the government, Claude grew pensive. "So I heard. That's unfortunate. She was probably the best shot you had at getting close to Sylar. And she'd be all the more motivated now I imagine."

Bennet was not sure where Claude was going with this. "Maybe. But I didn't ask for this meeting to talk about Sylar. I want to know how I can help you. Dealing with him will have to come later."

"No, letting you in on anything more than my identity will have to come later. I still don't know that I can trust you, Noah."

That was fair, but Bennet decided to go with indignation. After all, things had changed dramatically since he and Claude were partners. "Me? I've been here this whole time, working with these people, trying to help them. You've been a recluse for the last ten years, letting everyone think you were dead." Bennet knew that was mostly his fault. "Why do you suddenly care what happens to these people? Why come out of hiding now?"

He took a moment before answering. "A friend of mine was snatched up by your government in London. She was to be married in a few months, and now she's disappeared. People all over the world, not just the people your government has a right to control, but all over the world, people are disappearing from their lives, and the plan is that they will never be seen again. It sounds like something out of an Orwell novel. This is worse than the Company. With my skills and training, I can't stay out of it anymore."

They rode in silence for a couple minutes. Bennet thought about what more he could say to convince Claude. Finally, he just asked. "What do you want from me? What will it take for you to trust me?"

Claude seemed to ponder this. "I do want a man on the inside, Noah. And I know that you are a good agent, smart and capable, and high up in the organization. But any working relationship, especially one like this, needs to be built on trust. I don't trust you. When you tried to kill me, I saw how far your loyalty stretches."

There was nothing Bennet could do about the past. "All right, I'm sorry for that. There was a time when I would follow orders even when they were bad orders. But I am thinking for myself now. Ever since I found out about Claire, I've known what had to be done. Now, I don't need you. I can work this from my own angle. I just think that we'll be more effective if our efforts are coordinated."

Claude took this in a completely non-sequitur direction. "Adam Monroe claimed that his blood could cure any infirmity, including death."

Bennet could only assume that he was referencing Claire in some way. "What's your point?"

"You need someone who can get close to Sylar without making him suspicious, and that person needs to be motivated. We already know of someone like that, and her death may not stand in the way of using her. All you'd really need is the body and some blood."

There was a little more to it than that, like the fact that Elle hated him. Also, although Bennet had his own experiences with being raised from the dead, and he was grateful for that, he felt that it was not right to play God. "Adam Monroe is dead too. And Sylar set Elle's body on fire; I don't even know if there is one anymore."

Those were the most logical arguments, but they were not unassailable, as evidenced by Claude's response. "You have access to a room full of evolved humans lying unconscious on cots. You're telling me that not one of those people has Adam's ability? If I can get the body, can you get the blood?"

Bennet should have said no. He should have pointed out how crazy this plan was. He should have reminded Claude of what a loose cannon Elle was. He should have mentioned how suspicious it would be for her to show up alive when Sylar watched her burn. Instead, he said, "Yes." He just wanted Sylar killed so much, and he was at the point of being willing to try anything.

Since he had not been given any direction on where to go, Bennet had allowed himself to get stuck in Washington traffic. They were stopped at a light. Claude opened the car door and said, "I'll be in touch." A second later, he had disappeared into thin air.

–

Four days later, Claude called him. "I have the body." He told Bennet where and when to met him.

Bennet drove way out of the city to a part of rural Virginia he had never been before. Claude had gotten off the phone too quickly for Noah to bring up all the reasons this was crazy, the things that had been going through his head for the last few days. The last thing they should do was give Sylar back his twisted, sadistic girlfriend. Claude did not know Sylar, and he had not been there when Elle really went around the bend. This was a really bad idea, and he would explain that to Claude when he got there.

The directions led Bennet to a shell of a farmhouse and most of a barn. He walked cautiously into the barn. On first glance, there was no one and nothing there. Eight years of partnership were coming back to Bennet, and he waited for the inevitable reveal. As if on cue, Claude and the body appeared on the hard dirt floor. "Do you have the blood?" Claude asked.

Bennet did have a vial of healing blood and a syringe with which to inject it into the corpse. He did not know why he had brought it if he had no intention of bring Elle back. The idea of Sylar finally dying was a seductive one. As much as he wanted to talk Claude out of this, he wanted more for Claude to talk him into it.

Elle looked worse than Bennet expected. It was difficult to think of that mangled mass of charred meat as Elle. It did not even look human "I don't know if this blood can fix that damage."

"It's worth a try. If not, no harm done."

Claude reached out for the blood, but Bennet held it back. "She was working _with_ Sylar the last time I saw her."

Claude stood, to take the blood by force if necessary. "And then he killed her. I know how to handle Elle."

Bennet did not see how that was possible. "She's insane. You're talking about bringing back the most unstable agent we've ever had. She would never have even been an agent if her father was not a founder. She probably would have been locked up. What's to stop her from killing us as soon as she wakes up?"

"She likes me." He emphasized the last word to show that he was aware that she was not too fond of Bennet. "You have a gun. Give it to me. If we have to, we'll just kill her again. She's supposed to be dead anyway."

Bennet withheld both his gun and the blood for just one more question. "How is this any less likely to backfire than having you do it?"

Claude shrugged. "It's not. It's probably more likely to. The difference is that if this doesn't work, I won't have my brains eaten by a madman."

Bennet smiled, just a little. There was no evidence that Sylar ate brains. In fact, the weight of the evidence was against it, but he appreciated the imagery. He reluctantly handed over his gun, understanding why Claude needed to be the one holding it. If Bennet tried to shoot Elle, she would just electrocute him. Claude tucked it in the waist of his pants and held out his hand for the blood once again. After a second's hesitation, Bennet gave him that too. "Why do you care so much about killing Sylar?"

Claude knelt down over the body and prepared the syringe. "I know what he's done, the kind of threat he is. Eventually, he would need to be put down. But it would not be a priority for me if it weren't for you. Your loyalty is up for grabs, and if I can give you something you want, something your government can't give you, then maybe I'll be able to believe in you again." He plunged the syringe into the place on the body where the heart would be and waited for the results.

The first indication that it was working was her arms splitting off from the torso. Then her legs lengthened. Before her skin had even started to return, she drew a gasping breath of life. As the skin slowly grew back, starting at her extremities and working its way to the body, she grunted and moaned in pain. Bennet had found the body disturbing enough, but the process of rebirth was worse. When the skin got to her shoulders and thighs, it became increasingly apparent that she was naked and Bennet quickly took off his trench coat and laid it over her. Everything about this felt wrong.

Finally, when she looked completely healed, Elle opened her eyes. Bennet expected questions, but she did not say anything. She just looked around the barn, confused.

"What do you remember?" Bennet crouched down to be closer to her level.

She turned her head in his direction, looking startled. "Sylar—We were on a beach, and he cut into my head." She looked at him some more. "You _shot_ me," she said accusingly. Her hand went first to the upper thigh where she had been shot and then to her forehead. "Did I die?"

The answer to this question came from Claude. "Yes."

She looked at him and then back at Bennet. She seemed out of it, which was probably understandable. "Why does it smell like... burned flesh?"

There was smoky smell to be sure, but Bennet did not think he could have immediately identified it as burned flesh. He figured Elle must be more familiar with the scent, having burned several people herself. "He set your body on fire."

Elle nodded as though it all made sense now, and then she laughed. "That's kind of overkill, isn't it? If I was already dead? I guess he wanted to _really_ make sure I couldn't come back." She seemed abnormally amused by this. It just made her come across all the more unstable. "Why am I back?" she asked.

Bennet look to Claude. He was the one who said he could handle her. "We need your help," Claude said. "It's time this Sylar was stopped for good, and you're the only one who can do that."

She pulled her hair up over her face and examined the ends. "And why would I want to help you with that?"

Bennet had been prepared for some reluctance, but this was more than that. She was really asking, and there was an easy answer. "Because he killed you, Elle. After you had sex with him, after you cried over his dead body, after you helped him go after Claire, he killed you. I don't know what happened on that beach, but it must have been a betrayal."

Elle let her hair fall from her fingers. "Yeah, it must have been," she said thoughtfully.

"You don't remember?"

"No, I remember every word," she said with a wry smile. "I remember how he kissed me and pinned me down. 'Nobody ever really changes... We're both just damaged goods.' I remember that it was very upsetting at the time, but it's..." She shook her head. "It's not upsetting now."

Noah got to his feet. "It's no use. She's just..."

From the ground, Elle finished his sentence. "Inhuman." Bennet was not sure what he was going to say she was, but it was definitely not that. She rubbed her chest. "Something's missing, Noah. Right here. It's not upsetting. It's your fault he killed me, but I'm not angry at you. I think being dead broke me."

There was a complete lack of emotion in this, and yet there was so much sincerity. Bennet found that compelling. "I've been dead, Elle. I came back the same."

"Oh, then I must be wrong," she said sarcastically. "I'm just lying here going through all the worst things that ever happened to me in my life, trying unsuccessfully to recapture those feelings. But the fact that I can't _feel_ my father's death and I can't _feel_ that betrayal on the beach, that means nothing because you've been dead before."

This was getting more interesting. "What about the best moments in your life? Can you feel those?"

She closed her eyes and held up her hands, crackling with electricity. The electricity stopped and then started again. Finally, she opened her eyes. "No."

Noah crouched down again. This might actually work better than he imagined. "Okay, then you don't feel anything. You should still want to help us stop Sylar. I don't need to remind you that you are partly responsible for what he's done, and you need to take responsibility for ending it. Now, I've done everything I can. It's all on you. If you don't feel anything for him, it should be easy for you to betray him, right?"

Elle considered this seriously for a moment. She started to sit up and then laid back. "Would you mind turning around so that I could put this thing on properly?"

Bennet had never liked turning his back on Elle, but he did want her to get as dressed as possible. So he turned around, wishing that he still had his gun, not that it would do him much good.

"So that's why you brought me back?" Elle asked. "You want me to go to him and kill him?"

Bennet waited for her to give him the signal that it was safe to look again. When he did not say anything, he had expected Claude to jump into the conversation, but he did not. It was a good thing because there was one more variable they had not considered, and that was Sue Landers.

Elle tapped him on the shoulder, and Bennet turned to face her. "No, that's only the second part of it. First, we need his help."

Elle furrowed her brow. "With what?"

Bennet started to explain to her all the things that had happened in the two months since she died, but she got hung up on that time frame. "Seven weeks? No one has ever come back from being dead for that long." She started to pace. "I thought it had just been a couple days. I didn't know why we were in a barn, but I was willing to go with it. Seven weeks! No wonder I don't—It's brain damage. Why would you bring someone back after seven weeks?"

Bennet stole a glance at Claude. "Because neither of us can go to Sylar. It would be one thing if all we wanted was to kill him, but since we need his help, we require someone with a little more finesse. You two had something, and we know that you are talented enough to build on that. If there's anyone he would listen to, it's you. And when the time is right, when you can do it cleanly, then you'll kill him."

Elle smiled, so easily willing to do it. "Thus repaying my debt to society for making him this way."

She made no mention of revenge, and it was probably better that way. Bennet and Claude went on to explain about Building 26 and Rebel. The whole time she listened and nodded and took orders like a pro. Bennet knew that he could not count on her to always be this way, but for right now, this crazy plan of Claude's seemed like it was actually going to work.

As he walked Bennet out to his car, Claude said, "See, you handled the girl better than you thought."

Bennet kept his voice low. "Sylar has a lie detector. She has to believe that crap about wanting his help. It's the only way it'll work."

–

–

**Author's Note:** As wonderfully British as Claude was, if I tried to write him like that it would be hokey. So I can hear every line in Christopher Eccleston's voice, and that has to be good enough. (It isn't _not_ British.)

I really, really wanted to make the Haitian Rebel. I always wanted it to be the Haitian, but I kept running into the brick wall that is his deep religious beliefs. I don't think he would ever play God like that, and I needed Rebel to take the lead on it. And then I needed to explain why Claude would care. I'm not sure that worked as well on paper as it did in my head. And another interesting thing about Claude is that he is purely Season 1, and Seasons 1 and 3 do not mesh well together. (Bennet did not work there for twenty years! It was seventeen at the very outside. Where do those other three years go? And Claude did not seem to know who the Petrellis were, from the way he was with Peter. But how's that possible? I could go on.)


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12:**

Elle was in the restroom for a long time. Sylar and Luke stood outside the car, waiting for her to come out. Eventually, Luke asked if they should check on her.

"No," Sylar replied. "I think it's better to let her have some time alone."

Now that the silence was broken, Luke went on. "So, before, when you said you never slept together, that was just a lie."

Sylar had a feeling this was going to come up sooner or later. He leaned against the side of the car and crossed his arms. "Pretty much."

"So why did you really kill her?" He asked this as though he did not believe any of the reasons he had been given.

"It was just what I said. I could tell that she was lying to me, and I was just so sick of everyone lying to me. That's why I got this ability, so that no one would ever be able to lie to me again." When Sylar thought about it, there might have been more to it. "What we had, it was just over. It wasn't going to work anymore, and I couldn't stand to be around her. And then she had to go and get herself... attacked, and now I'm stuck with her."

Luke nodded, and Sylar realized what he had said out loud. He had just been venting his frustration about the situation. He did not mean it the way it sounded. "Don't tell her I said that. I don't feel stuck and she—it's not her fault. Just don't... tell her."

"Okay," Luke said earnestly.

Just then, Elle finally came out of the bathroom. It looked like she was fighting back tears and Sylar felt even more guilty about what he had just said. She did not even give him the opportunity to ask if she was okay, which he recognized as a stupid question anyway. She just repeated that she did not want to talk about it and told him he could drive.

–

Sylar took to the backroads again because as far as he was concerned, the interstate was too risky. He could understand up to a certain point why Elle would be so eager to get this over with, but he was a little uncertain what her comment about figuring out what she was going to do with the rest of her life meant. Was she referring to a long, natural life or did she just mean the rest of what there was of it? He decided not to ask because then he could assume that she meant the former. He could assume that problem was almost fixed. Of course, she now had a much bigger problem.

From the passenger's seat, Elle would stare at him for long stretches of time. She only stopped to read and respond to text messages, presumably from Rebel. It was unnerving to glance over and see her inscrutable blue eyes boring into the side of his face. She did not even look away when she was caught, which was disturbing in itself. He waited as long as he could before he finally said, "What?"

She continued to stare at him for a long moment before speaking. "I was just thinking that we were really only together for one day, and not even a whole day."

That did not sound right to Sylar. Obviously he knew what day she was talking about, but it seemed that they were together before that. "What about--"

She did not let him finish. "Anything that happened when we first met was a lie, so that doesn't count. And then at Pinehearst, yeah, maybe we were kind of friendly, but I really had no inkling that there was any possibility that we could be more than that until you kissed me."

Again, Sylar could see the logic, but she was wrong. The things that happened between them before she invited Trevor over to the apartment did count, at least a little. He had gotten the impression, later at Pinehearst, that it had not _all_ been a lie, and he wanted to ask about that now, but he was not sure whether he would like the answer she gave.

She shook her head. "So we were together for half a day, and then you killed me. And now you're stuck with me. Isn't it weird how things work out?"

The way she said he was stuck with her alarmed Sylar slightly, and he looked in the rear view mirror at Luke. Since Sylar had been there the entire time, he knew there was no way Luke had told her what he said that morning. This was something she had come up with on her own. "I'm not really stuck with you, Elle. If I wanted, I could have left you behind at any number of places. I choose to take you with me."

He realized that they had not spoken much at all since that conversation in the bathroom. The look on Elle's face as she nodded at this told Sylar that she had a good idea where his change in attitude had come from and that was what she had been referring to. "Right."

–

In the entire day, Elle did not think that she heard Luke say anything other than to order food. It was not like him to stay quiet for so long, and Elle could not help but think that his silence had something to do with what had happened to her early that morning. It was like a silent reminder of the attack. So, as night approached, she felt the need to engage him in conversation. She asked him how he came to be along for the ride with Sylar, even though she was familiar with the broad facts.

She barely listened as he chatted away. The only part that was really of interest to her was when Sylar said it was kind of a big deal for him to let the kid live. She knew that was not a reference just to her but to all his victims, but still it seemed important. Also worth noting was that Sylar let him tell that part of the story and did not tell him to shut up. Other than that one tidbit, it was just comforting to hear Luke's voice, to have things feel normal again. She wondered what she would have to do to get Sylar to act normal.

By the time Luke finished the story, night had long since fallen. Elle turned to Sylar and asked, "When are you planning on stopping?"

He shook his head. "I'm not. Aren't you the one who's in a hurry to get to Washington?"

She was. That morning, she definitely was in a hurry to change everything about her situation. But after sitting all day in a slightly cramped car, there were other things that seemed just as important to her. "Yeah. But I still haven't showered. Or brushed my teeth. And my back hurts, and I want to sleep in a real bed. If it's up for debate, I would vote for stopping."

Sylar did not respond to that, but fifteen minutes later, he pulled up outside a motel. Elle quite honestly had mixed feelings about this. She wanted to stop, and it was nice to get her way. However, she was actually being a little prissy, and he would not have tolerated that the day before. None of them had showered. None of them had brushed their teeth. She knew why her situation was different, but special treatment made her feel like a victim.

When they entered the motel room, Elle gave Sylar a curt "Thank you" before heading into the bathroom. She used the long shower to gather her feelings. She should be grateful to him. She should appreciate that he was being nice to her. Did she really want to continue living in apprehension that at any moment he could decide to kill her? He finally had something to feel really guilty about. She should be playing that up.

Even after the shower was over, she took her time drying off and getting dressed for bed. She did not have any pajama bottoms anymore, so it was back to using Sylar's shirt as a nightgown, even though she had just worn it all day. She was not sure if she was ready for what came next, but it was time to start using the attack to her advantage. She took a deep breath before opening the door.

"You know what just occurred to me?" she said as she placed her bag on the far bed, the one Luke was not sitting on. "Now I really am damaged goods."

Sylar got a stricken look on his face. "Don't say things like that."

The reaction was better than she expected. "It was a joke."

"It wasn't funny."

She turned to face him. "Right, I forgot. I need to be worried about your feelings. Because this is all about what happened to you." Just then she felt an inexplicable anger rising up in her. She was not sure where it was coming from because he had responded exactly how she wanted him to. The sarcasm was cathartic, but she felt the need to go beyond that. "You know, you should have been the one to kill him, because what he did to you was far worse than what he did to me. He broke your favorite toy, and now it's not fun to torture me anymore."

Before she even knew what was happening, Sylar had physically slammed her against the wall. She looked from his disturbingly fierce eyes to the hand on her chest that was holding her in place. She watched Luke hastily make his way to the bathroom and turned her eyes back to Sylar's face. He took a couple deep breaths and briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Elle did not see any anger, but there was something resembling hurt and regret. "Okay." He gave a slight nod. "If making jokes helps you deal with this, then fine."

He pulled his hand back sharply and turned away from her. That was a disappointing finish to the argument. Elle realized that she wanted him to be angry, to say hateful things. That would make it easier, knowing she was there to kill him. But he was being nice, and worse than that, understanding and accommodating. He was letting her say hateful, hurtful things with no consequences. She thought back to that morning in the bathroom when he told her that she could take it out on him. For reasons that had nothing to do with her assignment, she grabbed Sylar's hand and pulled him into a kiss.

Elle had only ever channeled electricity through her mouth while kissing a handful of men. Even though, Adam and Peter had been able to heal, she had never, until that morning, done more than tiny sparks, never anything that would cause more than mild discomfort. With the government agent that morning, she had ratcheted up the electricity in her kiss, but it was nothing that would do permanent damage. She had saved that for what came after the kiss. Now, with Sylar, she did not hold back. She knew that she must be causing him inordinate amounts of pain and that there was no way he was enjoying this in the slightest. He held tightly to her forearm, but he did not attempt to pull away from her.

After what felt like an eternity, but probably was more like fifteen seconds, she ended the kiss. She saw familiar burns on his face and neck, but they healed quickly. She did not know what to say, how to explain, so she did not say anything.

Sylar loosened his grip on her arm. "I'm sorry if I hurt you," he said, referring only to her arm.

Elle felt that she should say it back, really that she should have said it first, but she just rubbed her arm, lifting up the sleeve. "Yeah, you kinda did. I think it's going to leave a bruise." She looked at it, but the light was too dim to see if there was one forming.

Sylar nodded. "Sorry," he repeated. He backed away from her. "I was thinking I would bunk with Luke tonight. Let you have the bed to yourself."

Elle thought he probably had been thinking that even before she had basically tortured him, but she could not be sure. "Yeah, we probably should have been rotating that out from the start." She knew that he was not doing it in the interest of fairness, but she preferred to frame in those terms.

He nodded again, awkwardly this time, and walked to the other side of the room. She got the distinct feeling that he was trying to get away from her, and for right then, she was okay with that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13:**

With a bed all to herself, Elle closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep, but it was not that simple. She had underestimated one benefit of sleeping in the car. With them constantly moving, she was able to feel safe. Here in the motel room, every sound, even innocuous ones like Sylar and Luke's breathing, became ominous as soon as she closed her eyes. Once that breathing slowed and she knew that they were asleep, Elle felt alone and scared.

She tried so hard to drift off, but every time she felt close, the gravel would crunch outside or there would be a thud from the next room. She tried covering her head with the extra pillow, but the thought that she would not be able to hear someone approaching was even more disturbing. She thought it would help if she had Sylar closer to her, in the same bed, but she was afraid she had burned that bridge. "Sylar?" she whispered.

Sylar awakened to Elle softly calling his name. He tried to ignore it, but she kept whispering, slightly louder each time. "What?" he stage whispered.

"I'm sorry about before."

Sylar did not know if she meant what she said before or when she electrocuted him, but it did not matter because either way it was a lie. "Okay."

There was a slight pause. "I think I might hate you," she whispered back.

Sylar was not sure how he was supposed to respond to that. "I'm so glad you woke me up to tell me that."

"No, I _hate_ you. I'm really angry at you for killing me. That's why I said what I did. Because I feel angry. I thought you would like to know."

Now he could understand a little better why she had woken him. It was good news, but he had trouble getting too excited about the fact that she hated him. She had said that before, when Luke asked, and he knew there was no reason why that would change after what she had been through. He still did not know what to say in response. "Okay. Thanks."

"Will you sleep with me?" she asked in a slightly louder voice.

Beside him, Luke snorted with amusement, which was the first sign that he was awake. In his slightly groggy state, Sylar first thought was to tell her later, but realizing that Luke was listening made him think more clearly. "No."

"Why not?" She was almost whining.

Sylar sighed. There were so many reasons why he could not have sex with her, but he did not want to get into it right then. "Can we talk about this later?"

"No, I meant tonight. Right now," she added as though it should have been obvious. "I said I was sorry about before. I promise I won't do that again."

"It isn't about that," he said truthfully. The kiss was the least of his concerns. He was certain that he did not want her doing to him what she had done to the agent, but the way she kissed him that night had only made him intensely attracted to her. It was a strange physical reaction to a very painful kiss, and the only way he could rationalize it was that it must have come from some underlying, lingering attraction to her, which was the last thing he needed to be feeling while she was dealing with what happened to her. "Just go to sleep."

Elle was confused by Sylar's reaction. She really did not want to have to explain because that would force her to acknowledge her fear, and worse than that, it would force her to admit that she needed him. She closed her eyes, but she knew that it would not work. So she swallowed her pride and said, "I can't. Can we talk about it?"

Sylar gave a heavy, audible sigh and flipped off his sheets. "Fine, we'll talk in the bathroom."

Elle followed him into the other room, still really confused. She did not see why he was making such a big deal about this.

As soon as she was in the bathroom, Sylar closed the door behind her. "I have been really accommodating up to this point, but this isn't healthy, Elle. You were just assaulted last night, or this morning. The last thing you need to be doing right now is having sex."

It took Elle a moment to figure out where that had come from. As soon as she realized the other connotation asking him to sleep with her had, a slow smile spread across her face. She had her back to the door and she pulled it open about halfway so that Luke could hear too. "I meant just sleep with me in the bed with me. I wasn't asking you to have sex." She closed the door again and saw the relieved look on his face. He did not look at all embarrassed by the mistake he had made, and Elle admired that. "I didn't really want to get into it, but I just think I would feel safer having you right next to me. But now that you mention it, sex might actually help."

Sylar shook his head. "No. I'm sorry I misunderstood, but my whole point was that it was not a good idea."

He tried to get passed her, but Elle would not let him. The bathroom was barely big enough to contain two people, and Elle was grateful for that. Even if she was starting to have feelings again, she still had a mission. She was supposed to be getting close to Sylar and that's what she needed to do. Rebel had been gentler about it than Bennet, but she knew what was expected of her. She rubbed her arm absentmindedly, knowing this was not a good time to check for a bruise. "Yes, and I hear your point, but just hear me out. I have always had the tendency to express myself very sexually. I can't let him take that away from me. I can't be afraid of sex, so I think I need to push through this."

Sylar raised his eyebrows at this. "Push through it? I don't think it works that way."

Elle realized that probably was not the best way to put it, but it was the most honest way she could phrase it. She decided to go in a different direction with it. "When I came back to life on that hard dirt floor, naked because you burned off my clothes, I knew that both Rebel and... his associate were attracted to me. Even though they are both old enough to be my father and have known me since childhood, I _knew_ it. Men are always attracted to me because I am _attractive._ Do you still find me attractive, Gabriel?" She did not give him a chance to answer. "Let me rephrase that. Are you still attracted to me knowing that now I am truly damaged goods?"

Sylar grimaced. "That's a trick question." He paused, but eventually he answered. "Of course I'm attracted to you, but this is not about that. It's been less than twenty-four hours since you were attacked."

Elle noted that it was the second time he had used a euphemism just in this conversation alone. "So when will it have been long enough for you?" This time, she gave him plenty of time, but there was no response. "Yeah, you say that you're attracted to me, but what you really mean is that you're never going to touch me again because I was raped." For some reason, knowing that he was uncomfortable with that word, which was clear from his face, made it easier for Elle to say it. "He thought we were together you know, that I was your... whore. That's why he did it. He knew that he couldn't do anything to you directly, so he wanted to show dominance over you by screwing your girlfriend."

Sylar had looked away from her, but now he turned his head back. "Are you saying this was my fault?"

Elle had not been quite sure where she was going with that. "No, but I am saying that you're giving him what he wanted."

Sylar blew out his breath. "You know, I was so close to promising that I would touch you again, but you're right; we weren't together." He made a move to put his hands on her shoulders, but he stopped himself. It seemed ridiculous to Elle that he had stopped himself from touching her even in a nonsexual way. "You are going to be fine. You'll get through this, and I'm sure that you'll have sex again, but it won't be with me."

Elle did not actually want to have sex just then, but she was still dismayed to hear him say that. In the abstract, it seemed like a good idea to push through this with someone she knew and trusted and with whom she could maybe feel comfortable. For better or worse, and despite the murder, that was Sylar. He was right about it being too soon, but the realization hit her strongly that when she was ready, she wanted it to be with him. For right then, she just wanted him to admit that it was a possibility, since he had been very clear up to that point that he did not want to have sex with her. "So then is it okay if I have sex with Luke?"

She could tell that she had surprised him with that. "What? No."

Elle tried to hide how much she enjoyed his reaction. She rolled her eyes. "I promise I won't kill him."

He shook his head. "That's not... He's seventeen, Elle."

Elle knew that was not the reason either. "So? Why would I care about that? It's just a number."

Sylar looked at her like she was crazy, which was something she was used to. "No, it's not," he said simply.

She pushed because she wanted to hear him say the real reason he did not want her having sex with his little sidekick. "So that's it? You're just protecting him from a predatory older female, and that's the only reason? Because seventeen might be legal in this state for all we know."

Sylar cocked his head to the side. The problem was that he knew how stubborn she could be. Considering that she was willing to starve herself just to make him feel guilty, there was a undeniable possibility that she would go through with this too. Sylar really did not think that he could rely on Luke to be the voice of reason in that situation either. It felt like they were playing chicken with this. Really, they had been doing that since the beginning, that kiss in the first motel room being a perfect example. And maybe he had enjoyed the game a little, maybe he had been toying with her to a certain extent, but that was not appropriate now, especially after the comment she made earlier. "Elle," he said in his calmest, most rational voice. "You were--" he still could not say it. "--attacked yesterday. If you went to Luke, you would be asking him to heal you in a way that is really unlikely to work. That is a lot to put on a seventeen year old."

Elle looked back at him with sharp, blue eyes. He could see that she was trying to find some way to respond to that, but he thought his logic was airtight. After a second, she spoke in a clear, deliberate tone. "What I want, Gabriel, is for you to fix me, just like you promised you would."

Sylar sucked in some air. He was not sure that he had ever promised anything, but she had made a good point. He remembered the vow he had made when he left his father's house. He needed to fix her to redeem that one little piece of his life. She was going to be the one thing in his life that had mattered to him. Now she was having feelings, but she was worse off than when she found him at that abandoned restaurant. He was not done with her yet, and he could not be done until she was at least dealing with her attack in a healthy way. "That's what I want too, Elle, but this is not the way. I don't want to hurt you anymore; I need to be the one helping you."

That was not what Elle wanted to hear. She just wanted him to say that he would have sex with her at some point in the future, but he was being nice again. Sex would be simple, clean, familiar. She knew how to get close to a man like that, but if Sylar would not have sex with her, there would be no way for her ignore those other emotions he was expressing. She had a feeling that he did not even realize how much he had betrayed by saying what he just had. Elle could not even think about it because it made her hurt to think of what she was going to do to him. That was how quickly hate and anger had softened, and she knew that she was right to hold those feelings off for as long as she could. She needed to let this go because it was already an awkward conversation, and now it was heading into even more uncomfortable territory. "Fine, will you at least sleep in the same bed as me?"

Sylar looked like he wanted to say something, but he just nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."

She opened the door to let him out and gestured that she wanted him to leave first. He slid past her as best he could without making contact. She followed him out, turning off the light. As soon as she saw the dark motel room, the fear and apprehension all came rushing back to her. "The side closer to the door," she whispered, unsure if Luke was still awake or not.

She climbed into bed next to Sylar, and she instantly felt better. Even before that, she knew that the odds of being attacked again were really low and that she would be just as safe no matter where Sylar was in the room, but she also knew that having him next to her would make all the difference in her being able to sleep easily. Sylar was lying on his back, and Elle reached out her arm so that it was just resting up against his and she could feel him there. In no time, she fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

–


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Elle fell asleep almost immediately, but Sylar had much more difficulty doing so. He could feel her arm pressing up against his, and there was just enough light coming from the street light outside that he could see Elle's face. This was the fourth night he had shared a bed with her, and it should be getting easier to deal with, but it only got harder for him.

The night before, he had a dream about her, a dream that was suggestive enough that he felt the need to get away from her. That stupid dream was the reason he was not there when she needed him. It seemed ironic to Sylar that this had only happened to her because he was unable to face the fact that he was attracted to her. Just like the night before, there was nothing to do but watch her sleep.

He imagined that it was the night before, that he had stayed instead of left. The room was different, but they were all pretty much the same, small, trashy, the kind of place where people did not ask too many questions and paying in cash did not raise any eyebrows. He watched her sleeping next to him like he should have done before. She was on her back with her head turned toward him, lips slightly parted. When he asked if she was saying this was his fault, part of him wanted her to say yes, to acknowledge his part in what she was going through. Another part knew that it would crush him if she blamed him. He turned away from her, not able to take in her face anymore, and thought about what he was going to do next.

–

When Elle woke up in the morning, she found that she had turned over in the night and was hugging Sylar's arm to her. She quickly let go, which caused him to stir. She hoped he had not noticed the way she had been holding onto him. "Morning," she said, trying to sound innocent.

Sylar rubbed his eyes and kind of groaned in response. He raised his head to look over her to the clock on the nightstand. It read 8:23, which Elle knew was much later than he would normally want to be getting up. Luke was already out of his bed, and the shower was running. Elle wanted to connect those two things in her mind and know that Luke was in the shower, but her mind insisted on considering alternative situations. She wanted to curl up in Sylar's arms and have him hold her and protect her, but it was daylight now, and she needed to be stronger than that.

Sylar sat up and got out of the bed. He was not talking, and the awkwardness of the night before hung stagnant in the air, at least for Elle. She needed to break the tension. "I think we might be able to make it to Washington today."

He looked back at her, staring for a second. Then he shook his head. "We're not going to Washington."

If there had been anywhere for him to go, Elle felt that he would have walked away just then to really sell the enigmatic nature of this statement. She swung her legs around to the side of the bed. She hoped he was not thinking of leaving her behind again, not now. "Then where are we going?"

"We need to make a stop in New Jersey first. It's time for Luke to go home." He tossed her the bag containing her clothes. "So get ready quickly, because if we really hurry, we can make there tonight."

Well, he was not leaving her behind, but dropping off members of the group did not seem like it boded well for her. "Is this because I said I wanted to sleep with him?" Elle was kind of hoping the answer was yes.

"No, it's because he's a seventeen year old boy, and I'm not his father. I have no desire to be responsible for a teenager. I meant to leave him behind days ago."

The fact that he did not even seem annoyed by her question made Elle think that it did have a little to do with what she said before. "Okay, well, just so you know, I wasn't actually going to have sex with him. I just wanted--" She stopped herself because the only way she could think to complete that sentence was "You," which was not what she intended to say. It was not what she intended to feel.

Eventually, realizing that she was not going to finish, Sylar nodded with a small smile. "Good."

Elle picked up the bag from her lap. "So you want me to get dressed now? Here?"

He looked over her with a slight hesitation. "No, I think we can spare the time it'll take you to get dressed after Luke gets out."

Elle liked the way he looked at her just then. There was a kind of sweet desire there that reminded her of the man she had known, not Gabriel in his watch repair shop, but Sylar in the Canfield house. He was never going to be that Gabriel again, but the man who made love to her two months ago was still there. If he had not been looking at her just then, she would have slapped herself to get rid of those thoughts, the way she imagined Bennet would want to slap her if she had said that in front of him.

Thinking back on it, Elle did not remember Bennet ever slapping her. He just always looked like he wanted to. She had a new perspective now that made her understand why. She was very frustrating. You have a job, and you do it. It was simple, but she always made it more complicated. She tried to think of what Rebel would say if he were there. Something wise and confusing. Then she thought about how she always thought of Claude as Rebel, even though that was a fairly new moniker. It was better because it would stop her from slipping up, it was just strange that she no longer thought of him by the name she had always known him by.

Sylar kept looking at her through this stream of consciousness, even though it took her a while to get from one end of it to the other. Maybe he was waiting for something, although she could not imagine what. So they stayed there, locked in a silence until Luke finally came out of the bathroom. Then, at last, Elle had something to do.

Picking out an outfit was more difficult that usual, especially considering that she had so few options. She wanted to be someone else that day, someone strong and confident. She wanted to be the person she used to be just a couple days before. She pulled out the clothes she had been wearing when she first came to Sylar in that restaurant, a tight skirt and high heels. She knew that Sylar wanted her to hurry, but she took time to slick her hair back in a tight ponytail. She did not have any hairspray, so she made do with water from the tub. She would rather use the sink, but she did not think that Sylar would let her fuss with her hair once she was out of the bathroom.

When she was done, she took a few deep breaths, trying to conjure up the confidence that she had been faking her whole life. When she came back, with new life, she had not needed to fake it anymore. Zombie Elle was confident, fearless, and losing that made the fear and doubts all the more prominent. One more deep breath, and she opened the door.

Sylar was already dressed when she came out. He probably just threw on a shirt and pants, ran his hand through his hair, and that was it. Elle walked past him to the door, since they were clearly waiting on her.

–

No one mentioned New Jersey for the first leg of the trip. So even though Elle was pretty sure that Luke did not know he was going home, she let him ride in the front seat. It was not until later, around dinnertime, that Luke asked, "Should we really still be heading north?"

"Change of plans," Sylar said. "You're going home."

Elle could not see, but she imagined that Luke's eyes got wide as he started to sputter. "Wh—But—Why? What about--" He turned around in his seat. "What about Rebel?"

Elle thought that was a good question. Sylar had not taken that into account at all when he made his decision, but it would not have mattered. "Yeah, it turns out that Rebel doesn't have much need for a teenager with no training." She had relayed Luke's interest, even though she knew how he would respond. "But if he changes his mind, he'll know where to find you."

Luke sat facing front again, sulking. "And what are the chances of that happening?"

"Mmm, not good. Maybe if you had a more useful ability, like..." She was having trouble thinking of what the really good ones were. "Stopping time or... Oh, you know who had a good one? Eden McCain. Persuasion. But Sylar killed her."

"No," Sylar said. "I wish I killed her, because that is a good one, but she killed herself. Stupid girl shot herself in the head so that I couldn't get her ability."

"Doesn't sound too stupid to me," Elle remarked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was she a friend of yours?" He didn't sound sorry.

"Yeah, kinda, but I'm used to it." Elle was just glad that they had changed the subject. Even if Luke wasn't distracted, at least he could not whine about it while they were talking. "You know who I couldn't stand though? Candice."

"Who?"

It really sounded like Sylar had no idea who that was, but it should have been a memorable encounter. "Illusion. You killed her in Mexico."

She watched the side of Sylar's face as he smiled at the memory. "She said her name was Michelle."

Elle rolled her eyes. "Of course she did. Well, whatever she called herself, I'm sure she looked stunning."

He was still smiling. "She said she would look like anything I wanted. Even twins, although I'm not really sure how that would work out if there's only one of her."

"Bitch." The word slipped past Elle's lips before she was aware that she was thinking it. Sylar looked back at her for a second before he had to turn back to the road. That probably was not the best reaction for Elle to have. She did not know why she even brought up Candice when she knew that it would put her in a bad mood. "I mean, that must have been fun for you. Especially since she could have any man she wanted, and yet she chose to hit on you. How wonderful."

"What are you trying to say?" Sylar sounded more amused than offended, which was good.

Elle had meant that exactly how it sounded. He was attractive enough, but she meant to imply that Candice was not interested in him for his looks. "I don't know. Maybe it was the power. Maybe she had a vision of the two of you ruling the world someday. All I know is that if she lived long enough, she would have really enjoyed letting me know that she slept with you before I did."

Luke butted into the conversation, and Elle thought that was for the best. She wanted to get the picture of Sylar alone in Mexico with Candice out of her head. "How is it fair," Luke asked, "that I was here first, and I'm being treated like a third wheel?"

Elle could think of a lot of answers to that. Technically, she was there first; she just took an unplanned hiatus. Then there was the difference in training and skill levels, and also the fact that Sylar would have left Luke stranded in Montana if it was not for her. Sylar did not bother with any of that though. He just cut through the crap and said, "Life's not fair."

That seemed to be an effective way of settling matters. Luke went back to his sulking, and Elle thought about the unfairness of life, hers in particular. That took her mind back to Candice, which was really one of the lesser injustices, but it was also the most recently mentioned. In the past, Elle had taken comfort in the knowledge that Sylar killed Candice, but now he had killed her too. "It's not fair that Candice got that assignment."

Sylar swiveled his head again. "Wait, are you—You do realize that I killed her, right?"

That did not mean anything anymore, not now that she knew how easily he killed women he slept with. "Yeah, that's my point. She was completely unprepared to handle you, and she stupidly thought sleeping with you would keep you from doing anything to her. Meanwhile, I was given the Peter Petrelli assignment, and he was docile as a kitten. Mostly. It should have been reversed." She was too focused on her own jealousy to worry about whether what she just said had undone all her work to make Sylar jealous of Peter.

"Well, I don't know about you and Peter, but I didn't sleep with Michelle—Candice, whatever you want to call her. I just killed her." It seemed that she had not undone it completely. "And I was recovering from surgery, no powers. They probably thought I was the easier mission."

It was nice of him to say that, but she knew that was not why the assignments came down that way. Her father wanted to keep her close to home, and Peter did not have any abilities at the time either. They—the powers that be—knew that Peter would be an easy assignment. All she had to do was bring him pills and flirt. Sylar seemed to be expressing more faith in her abilities than her own father had. Maybe she had led him to believe that she was more at that Company than she really was. She was not going to disabuse him of that notion. And as a bonus, it turned out that he had resisted the beguiling Candice Willmer. Of course, he was also doing a fine job of resisting her, but the nicer he was, the more Elle saw his resistance crumbling.

Elle found herself cursing the man who raped her. She would be so on track if it was not for that. Yes, she sarcastically told herself, things would be better if she had not been raped. What a novel concept. She did note that since using it the night before, the word rape was getting easier to own. Soon she would start calling herself a survivor instead of a victim. She felt hysterical laughter bubble up because these thoughts were ridiculous. Why did she even have to think about that? Why wouldn't it just go away?

–

It was late when they got to New Jersey, and instead of dumping Luke on his doorstep, Sylar choose to stay about a half hour out of Newark. Sylar had left things kind of chaotic at the Campbell house, and he wanted to make sure that everything would be okay for Luke to return. It was stupid that he cared so much.

Sylar could not go to the house himself to smooth things over with Luke's mother. It might not be safe, and she would not listen to him anyway. He told Elle that he wanted her to go with Luke. "And what am I supposed to say?" she asked as she claimed a bed.

"Whatever you have to." Sylar sat on the other bed to take off his shoes.

"Whoa, no." Elle took his arm and pulled him into a standing position. "The sleeping arrangements are set. We agreed."

Sylar did not remember agreeing to anything, but he sat on her bed all the same. She did not bring up Luke's mother again that night, and Sylar figured that meant the matter was settled.

–


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Elle rang the doorbell to Mary and Luke Campbell's house. Luke stood sullenly beside her. She did not know how she had gotten herself dragged into a situation that she had nothing to do with. She was dead when this all went down. Shouldn't that exempt her from having to do this?

Sylar would not listen to logic, twisted or otherwise. He just talked about how she was so protective of the kid, which was an utter exaggeration. He told her how Mary had been afraid of Luke, how she had thought he was some kind of monster. He said it was terrible for a kid to have his own mother look at him like that. It sounded like he knew that from personal experience, and that was the moment that Elle relented. She let his tortured past and those dark, brooding eyes distract her from the fact that this was not her problem. He wisely did not give her time to come to her senses. He just dumped the two of them out of the car and kept driving. Elle only assumed he would be coming back for her.

Luke nudged her. "You know, if neither of us want to be here, we could just leave."

The trouble with this idea was that Elle did not want to be responsible for Luke either. She may not want to be there, but she definitely wanted Luke there, so she would suffer through this. She stared at the door, not making eye contact. "My mother died when I was a kid. And then a few months ago, my father was murdered. It really sucks not having any parents. My father was upset and disappointed in me when he died. How would you feel if you mother died with the way you left things?"

That shut Luke up, and Elle thought about what she was going to say. She felt like she was being punished. She never had to clean up messes like this. She was always the one creating them and leaving it to another agent to explain to the family. She had nothing prepared when Mary opened the door. Maybe she would play up this dead parents thing again because that seemed to work wonders.

Mary stared at the two of them. It looked like maybe she wanted to deny her son, say she did not want him there, but she could not bring herself to do that. She did not say anything, so Elle held out her hand. "Hello, Mrs. Campbell. I'm Elle, and I wanted to return your son to you."

It occurred to Elle, as Mary Campbell awkwardly shook her hand, that she should have used a fake name. She was supposed to be dead. Elle pressed ahead; it was too late to change it now. "Can we talk inside?"

Again, Mary looked like she wanted to say no, but she kept her mouth shut. Elle pushed Luke through the door and past his mother. Luke went into the living room, but Mary grabbed Elle's arm. "What am I supposed to do with him? He's been with that monster for two weeks. I don't even know who he is anymore."

Elle closed the door behind her. "He's your son. He is an awkward teenager who is dealing with a life-changing development at exactly the wrong time. I know that he killed someone, and I don't condone that. Maybe he should be locked up. But right now, we're not talking about a regular murder trial where he would have the chance to explain to a jury that he acted in defense of another person's life. The government is sending out agents to kidnap people like your son, not just murderers, anyone with an ability. They drug them and leave them unconscious in a cold basement. And that's just until they get permission to kill these people like your son, which is their ultimate goal."

Mary shook her head. "I thought you were with the government, but... you're one of them," she said with a sigh. She inched toward the cell phone lying on a table.

"No, I'm not." It felt good to lie again. Elle could tell this woman anything she wanted. "I worked for the precursor to this government agency, a private company. I spent my entire adult life working with evolved humans. I know what your son is going through, and I don't think he intended to kill anyone. He just finally met someone like himself. Someone who made him feel like less of a freak, and he wanted to protect that person. I have a lot of experience with—"

Elle stopped because she suddenly saw a path she could take. She had no idea how effective it would be, but at least it was something to say. There was an added incentive that it would annoy Sylar, with whom she was presently annoyed. Or it would annoy him if he ever found out. "I'm guessing they came for the body, right? So you probably heard a lot of things from a lot of different people." She guided Mary to sit on the couch with her son. "But what they probably did not tell you is that they are mostly mercenaries who've never even talked to an evolved human. None of them have ever even met Sylar. Unless you talked to Noah Bennet. Forty-ish, horned rimmed glasses?"

Mary just stared at her, and that was answer enough for Elle. "So they didn't know what they were talking about. They've read files, if that. I, on the other hand, know Sylar pretty well, and I'm going to tell you what happened the first time I met him, back when he was just discovering his ability."

Luke's sour expression left his face, and his eyes lit up. "Wait, is this _the_ story? The one you wouldn't tell me?"

Elle nodded. "Yep. This is the story of who Sylar used to be and what I did to him." Then Elle sat down across from the Campbells and told them everything in excruciating detail, starting with her being assigned the case and finding him in the middle of a suicide attempt and ending in Sylar throwing her against a wall and killing Trevor Zeitlan.

When she was done. Luke slumped back on the couch. He had been listening with rapt attention. "Wow. No wonder he hated you."

Mary was slightly less impressed, but then again, she had not been dying to hear that story for the past week. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand what your point was in telling that story."

Elle had not expected that to be enough for Mary, and now she was ready to tie it together. "My point, in a roundabout way, is that Luke needs you. Sylar snapped after being betrayed by a woman he barely knew for a week." As she said this, she was perfectly aware that Sylar was going to kill Trevor before he knew that she had lied, but she had left out the part about the electricity anyway. "Imagine what it would do to Luke if he was denied by his own mother?"

Mary bristled at this. "I'm assuming that you don't have any children, so how dare you--"

It was time for Elle to pull out her secret weapon. "No, I don't, and I can't imagine what it's like to be a mother. But here's what I do know. My mother died when I was too young to even remember her, and then I spent my entire life trying to earn my father's approval." She waited a beat for dramatic effect. "Sylar killed him before that ever happened. So, no, I can't tell you how to raise your son, but I can tell you what it's like to be his age and have a parent who looks at you like you will never be good enough. And I know all about rocky parent-child relationships, and about the regret you'll feel if this is the last encounter you have with your son."

"Why would--"

It was working; Elle could tell. Luke was even listening thoughtfully as she talked about him like he was not there. "That's another thing I know really well. The company I worked for was a little different than this new government agency, but I know how those people think. If you hand Luke over to the authorities and he goes into Building 26, there is a very good chance that he will never leave. So all I'm saying is think about it. I have contacts. I know that the government thinks Sylar killed Agent Simmons. I know they're unsure of whether Luke even has an ability. Which means that you didn't say anything when they came for the body. Maybe you want to give Luke a second chance, and if so, I certainly won't say anything about what really happened."

Mary looked at her son with a pensive expression. "But he _killed_ someone."

Elle stood. She had done all she could. "I can't tell you what to do. I barely know you people, and there are obviously issues that you need to work out yourselves. I brought Luke home so that you could do that. If you want to call up the agents--" She turned to look at Luke. "--or if you want to run away again, that's your decision. I'm going to leave because I've done what I came here to do."

She started for the door without even saying goodbye to Luke. She could not get any more invested in his story, since there was a very good chance it was not going to end well. Behind her, Mary stood. "Wait. Where did you find him?"

Elle turned around slowly. To lie or not to lie? She figured that eventually Luke would tell his mother much of what happened, so too much lying would discredit everything else she had told the woman. "Like I said, I know Sylar pretty well. That was only the first part of our story, and I had my reasons for wanting to track him down. A lot of them," she said with a smile. "So I did, and I found Luke with him, and I brought him back to you. Because Sylar's world is no place for... anyone."

She wanted to advise Mary to keep her son safe, but that was not her place. So without another word, she walked out of the house. Once outside, she looked around, but she did not see Sylar or the car. She sat on the front stoop, not sure what she was expecting.

Elle felt like she was going to cry, but she was not completely sure of why. She had gotten through a sexual assault and the two days that followed without shedding one tear. She could not even make herself cry when she wanted to. She put her head down on her knees as the first tears rolled out. Was it remembering Gabriel, or her father's death, or being left alone? She was practically bawling on a relative stranger's doorstep, and she could not pinpoint the reason. All she knew was that it was not the rape. She knew that she would never cry over the rape.

Keeping her head down, Elle listened to the sound of the passing cars. She thought it would sooth her to hear life going on, but instead it felt like it was going on without her. One car slowed, and Elle looked up, hoping it was Sylar, but it was just someone parking on the street. That was when she knew that she was crying because she was alone. And it was not just because Sylar was not there, but because her father was dead and almost everyone who knew her thought she was dead too. She had nowhere to go.

She wiped the tears and snot from her face and got to her feet. She did not know what her next move was, but she could not stay where she was. She looked down the street and saw the sign for Sampson Gray, Taxidermist. She knew that it would not accomplish anything for her to go there, but she felt herself drawn to this piece of Sylar, as though it was some kind of substitute for his presence. She was on the steps, about to reach out for the doorknob when a car honked behind her. She sighed and prepared some kind of excuse around having her dead cat stuffed, but when she turned around, it was Sylar.

He gave her a hurried waving motion, and Elle ran down the steps. It was difficult for her to get into the car, though, because the briefcase was on the seat, open and beeping. As soon as she was seated with the briefcase on her lap, before she even had the door closed, Sylar let off the brake and put a heavy foot on the accelerator.

Sylar could see that Elle had been crying again, and he did not want to ask about that. He was a little curious about why she was at his father's house., but he thought it was best to stick to a safer topic. "How did it go with Luke's mother?"

She was maneuvering the seatbelt around the case. "I think it was okay. Having dead parents really came in handy, so thanks for that."

Sylar was not sure what she meant by that. He felt the need to point out that he only killed one of her parents, but he decided to let that go. Maybe that was why she was crying. Whatever the reason, it was sure to be his fault, which was why he did not want to ask. "Well, thank you for doing that for me."

Elle sighed. "You were right. She wouldn't have listened to you. She barely listened to me, and she thought I was a neutral third party, at least at first." A few moments of silence passed, and Sylar felt that there was something she was not saying. "I didn't think you were going to come back for me," she said at last.

That was not it. She was keeping something else back, but he focused on what she had said. She meant that; he would know if she was lying. She really thought that he was going to leave her stranded in New Jersey without even saying good-bye. He did not know why that bothered him so much, since it was exactly something he would do. If he was going to leave her, or going to kill her, he would not give her any warning or chance to argue. "You're my only contact with Rebel."

Elle snorted at this. Sylar did not like that she could see through him so easily. "You don't need me or Rebel." She took a breath. "So thank you for letting me go with you."

Sylar could have made some comment about being a team player or about how it would not hurt to have her help anyway, but he thought maybe it was better to leave her with the completely accurate impression that he was taking her along for different reasons. He just nodded at her thanks.

–

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**Author's Note:** So this is what I have written as the first week of 2L starts. I know that I take forever with updates, but I have so much to do for school. Please be lenient with me for the first few weeks. (How much worse could my updating get anyway?)


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note:** I'm just going to say this to the masses, instead of writing it individually. I am going to try to reply to all signed reviews on this or any of my chaptered stories. I may get too lazy or busy, but I'm going to try, because you all make my day. In responding, I try to write something specific to the review so that it doesn't sound like a form letter, so that you'll know that I thought about your review. So if you're like "Why is she telling me this?" it's because you kind of brought it up. (And on the other hand, if all I write is a thank you, I still thought about and really appreciated your review. I just could not think of anything to say back. Or I was lazy. Or both.)

--

--

**Chapter 16**

In getting from Newark to Washington, Sylar took the most roundabout way, avoiding as many towns and cities as possible. Because of this, the trip took about eight hours. Now that they were in a geographic area that Elle was more familiar with, she was able to extrapolate that this trip was taking twice as long as it had to. Elle did not mind that so much. The closer they got to Washington, the less she was sure that she really wanted to go there.

She would go with Sylar no matter what, for as long as he would let her. She was not going to ask him to drop her off or anything like that. It was just that she did not particularly want to be that close to Bennet, Rebel, or Building 26 and it's agents. As she got more dependent on Sylar, she preferred having autonomy in her dealings with him. She did not like the idea of Rebel checking up on her whenever he wanted or the fact that she would not even know if he was. In Washington, she would have to kill Sylar. She wondered what the penalties would be if she refused.

They did not speak to each other much over the course of the trip. Luke had definitely been the talker of the group. In Elle's mind, the silence alternated from being companionable to being awkward and back again. It felt like there was so much that they should be saying, but Elle did not know how to put any of it into words. The more important it seemed, the more difficult it would be for her to say it. She was so curious about what he was thinking, but she could never bring herself to ask. The silence was better; it worked for them.

Sylar stopped before they got to their destination. Obviously, there were reasons to stay out of the city, but Elle suspected that maybe he was reluctant to go to Washington too. In the motel office, he asked for two beds. She would have protested, but the way the young, female hick behind the counter looked at Elle, and especially the way she looked at Sylar, caused Elle to hold her tongue. She was not going to beg him to sleep with her in front of an audience. The last thing she wanted was this girl's condescending pity and disdain.

So Elle waited until they were safely enclosed in the room, away from prying eyes, before she said, "We don't need two beds."

Sylar sighed, like she was a problem that needed to be dealt with. She imagined it was a struggle for him to keep his response from being too patronizing, and that was exactly what she had wanted to avoid in the lobby. "Look, it's pretty much the same price, and this way, you can have some space."

Elle sat on one of the beds, testing out the mattress. It was tolerable. She thought about what she wanted to say carefully. She had no way of knowing if he meant what said or if it was an excuse, but she decided to take it at face value and just be honest with him. "I know you think that's what I need, and I appreciate that you're trying to help me deal with this. But you're wrong. I don't need space. I need to have you as close to me as possible. That's what going to help me."

He did not come any closer to her. In fact, he seemed to be contemplating taking a step back. "I don't understand that. You said that what I did was worse than what he did to you. Why would you want to be near me?"

In saying what she had just then, Elle was opening herself up to him in a way that made her a little uncomfortable. She had worried about how he would respond to that, but this was good. He had invited open discussion of all those things she could not bring herself to say in the car. Elle gathered her thoughts again. "It wasn't—It's hard to compare the two really. You _hurt_ me more. It was more painful with you, and I don't just mean physically, although definitely that. Just... On every level that you could possibly hurt someone, that's how you hurt me. It didn't hurt with him. He didn't even have the capacity to hurt me the way you did. But I could just feel myself breaking."

By this point, Elle was not trying to answer the question anymore. She was not thinking about what her words might mean to him; she was just letting all of her thoughts pour out. "I've been broken down little by little my whole life until I couldn't take any more, and I didn't think there was any more. But there was, and he found it, and he broke it. And you can't fix me, Gabriel, because I'm not a watch."

He watched her speak as though she was was confirming all his worst fears, but when she said the last part, he latched onto it like a life preserver in a sea of harsh reality. "I fixed you once before."

The memory of Pinehearst flooded back to her in a different context than how she usually thought of it. "Yeah, you did," she breathed. She had never really thought of it like that before, but he had taken her and deconstructed her and made all the gears align properly again, just as if she were a watch. The fact that he was bringing that up now told Elle that there was a very good chance he really wanted to help because of something more than just guilt, because of some feelings that he had for her. She wanted to encourage those feelings in him, but her head shook itself involuntarily. "And it was incredible, but it's different this time."

Sylar almost told her that with enough time and perseverance, he could fix anything. That was the operant word, any _thing._ That tied directly into the point she was trying to make; she wasn't a thing. He knew that he could not fix her in the way he had before. He had always known that. After several long moments, he said, "Maybe it is different, but that doesn't mean--" He shook his head. There was nothing he could say to make this better, no way to wipe it away, and that was the most frustrating part of all. "You know, you didn't actually answer my question. All you did was make me more confused about why you want to be near me."

Elle rocked back and forth a little bit. "You make me feel safe."

That was the confusing part. "I killed you. And that's worse than what anyone else did."

She looked away from him, still rocking, like she was uncomfortable with that particular fact. "I told you, not worse, just... different." She paused for a second, then she seemed to make up her mind about something. With a decisive nod, she stood. "Do you really want to help me?"

Sylar felt that he should say no, that it would be a mistake to get any closer to her than he already was. She was already far too dependent on him for her own good. He could see that, and he needed to discourage it. But he really did want to help her. "Yeah, Elle, I do."

She walked up to him and placed her hand on his chest. "Then have sex with me."

This was the problem with trying to help her. He could not trust that she would know what was best for her. It was not just that she was pushing herself to have sex so soon after what happened, but that she did not even understand that he was not good for her. He took her wrist and forced her hand away from him. "We've discussed this, and I think I made myself clear."

She looked annoyed, maybe even a little angry. "It's not your place to decide what I need or what is going to work for me. Do you understand how utterly inappropriate it is for you to tell _me_ how to deal with this? I'm not saying that you just have to do whatever I want, but don't act like you know better than me." She began to pace. "Do you know the worst thing that will happen if you're right? You will still have diluted the memory of him that remains on my skin and cleansed me on a level that showering cannot get to."

There were worse things that could happen. She was ignoring the possibility that sex could make things worse. If she began to associate him with the rape and her rapist, it would take away the one thing that made her feel safe. But she did not want to hear that from him because it was utterly inappropriate. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to help you. I want you to consider--" He could not think of a way to phrase it that would not make it sound like he thought he knew better than her. "I just don't want to hurt you anymore."

She smiled, as though through tears. "You won't." The anger was gone immediately, and what replaced it was conciliatory in nature. She took hold of his shoulders and turned him around so that she could push him down onto the foot of the other bed. Then she quickly climbed on top of him. "You don't have to do anything. You could just lie there. In fact, that might actually be... better," she finished awkwardly.

Sylar felt the need to remind her of one more thing, something he hoped she would be more receptive to hearing from him since it did not relate to the rape. "What about that strong association your mind makes between kissing me and being killed by me?"

That threw Elle for a second, but she quickly recovered. She lowered her head above his, supporting herself on her elbows. "Well, maybe if I'm on top, it'll bring back better memories."

Reluctantly, passively, Sylar let her kiss him, but he knew that it was wrong. She moved her head down to kiss his jawline, and he used this opportunity to ask her something that had been bothering him. "Do you really want to be near _me_ and have sex with _me,_ or is it just because I'm here?" He was not sure how either answer would affect his decision here.

Elle sat back on her heels, against his thighs. She sighed, as if to say that the question was far too complicated. "It's not because I'm--" She blew out her breath. "I want to be near you because of what you can do, how you can keep me safe. That is very specific to you. The other thing is... I believe that you don't want to hurt me, and I think that you will be..." She shook her head. "And we've had sex before so there's some basis there, something to tie it to, something to ground me. So it's you, but it doesn't mean that I'm, like... or that I think _we _are... If it was anyone else here, I don't think I would want him to... You're just someone who has always been..." She stared off into space, and then she snapped her head back to look at him. "I don't want to talk about it. I just want to do it."

As self-serving a belief as it was, it seemed to Sylar that Elle had put thought into this. Despite the fact that she could put her explanation into words, maybe she did know what she wanted. He watched her unbutton her shirt, and he was almost ready to give in to her until he saw the yellowing bruise on her upper arm. He reached up to touch it, and she winced.

Elle looked at her arm. "No, don't think about that." She reached out her other arm and shot out the light with a bolt of electricity so that he could not see it anymore. "You didn't hurt me. That was my fault."

It would be perfectly fair for him to put the blame on her, but no matter what she did, Sylar was responsible for his own actions. He had hurt her again that day during a time when he was trying to help her. He scooted back on the bed to get away from her, but she followed him up. There were so many more questions that he had. Why now? What was the rush? "Is this really so important to you that I'm hurting you by not doing it?"

"Yes!" she said, like she was so glad he had put those words in her mouth. It was a lie, which she must have quickly realized. "Okay, no, probably not, but..." She rubbed her hands up and down his chest. "I know you want this too. I mean, as soon as I brought it up, you decided to get rid of Luke. Are you saying that wasn't because you wanted to be alone with me?"

Sylar was pretty sure that he had taken Luke back to New Jersey for exactly the reason he had said, and it had never occurred to him that it might be out of some secret desire to have sex with Elle. He could see why she might make that assumption, though. He took her wrists in his hands again, but this time he pulled her down on top of him. "You have to promise me you'll stop if--"

She nodded slightly because her face was too close to his to do more. "I will. I promise."

This came out as a whisper, and her hot breath sent a shiver through Sylar's body. He was still not sure that he was doing the right thing, for Elle or in general, but he lifted his head just enough to meet her mouth with his, taking a more active role in kissing her than he had the last time. He chose to believe that she would tell him if he was hurting her or if she was having flashbacks, but more than that, he believed that he would be able to tell. She would not be able to hide that from him, and she would have no reason to want to. He put all of his doubts aside and focused on giving Elle what she wanted.

–

–

**Author's Note: **I have never written a graphic sex scene, and I doubt I ever will. (I'm not normally a prude, but when it comes to writing it, I kind of am. It's just not my style.) So what will follow will be something, but I don't want you to expect anything too... explicit.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

The sex was slow, sensual, and took so long to progress from one stage to the next that Elle was not even sure it was really going to happen. It was like no other sexual experience Elle had ever had. Those were mostly frenzied, frantic affairs in which clothes were discarded as quickly as possible. This time, it was at least an hour before either of them took off anything other than her shirt, and once the disrobing began, every single item of clothing was removed minutes apart from the last.

They started out just kissing, with Elle lying on top of Sylar. Eventually, after a lot of making out, Elle ended up on her back with Sylar above her. That was a position that Elle had wanted to avoid since she had been on her back both when she was killed and when she was raped, but somehow, here with Sylar, it did not seem so scary. He began to explore her body, savoring her. He spent five to ten minutes on her collarbone alone, and from there, he worked his way down to the waistline of her skirt. On his way back up, he pulled down the straps of her bra, but not the cups. He kissed the swell of her breast at the edge of the bra, down into valley, and up the other side. Then his lips found her collarbone again and finally, her mouth, coming full circle.

For the most part, Elle had only had sex during the day or in other situations where it was not feasible to turn off the lights. She found the fact that she could not see Sylar, she could only feel him, to be incredible. At no point did she really forget about what had happened to her three nights earlier in a remarkably similar motel room, but nothing Sylar did was in any way reminiscent of that experience. He seemed to know exactly how to touch her and kiss her in a way that was least likely to evoke those memories.

Despite what she had said earlier about him not having to do anything, Elle allowed Sylar to set the pace, because he had picked a really good one. When it was all over, she recognized that if it had gone how she originally envisioned it, it would have been a big mess. She needed it to go slowly; she needed to be eased into every part of it. It annoyed her that Sylar probably did know know better than she did about what she needed.

She lay on her side and stared at the outline of Sylar's face and chest. She knew that what had just transpired that night was not merely sex. He had made love to her. And that would have been great, it would have been a happy realization, if she wasn't supposed to kill him. This was the endgame right here. She was close enough, entrenched enough, that it was time to plan her attempt. She looked around the room half-heartedly. What was she supposed to use? It was not like she had a knife hidden under her pillow. He would hear her break the mirror. She could not really see the contents of the room, but that did not stop her from determining that there was nothing to use and no way to kill him right then.

Elle had realized that night how much Sylar must really care about her. She had always kind of figured that he could not have since he killed her and all. There was something there obviously, something for her to exploit, but that was guilt and regret. This was something else. Elle repeated the names of his victims in her mind to the rhythm of his chest rising and falling. For every breath, another life was taken, and it did not even matter to her anymore. She thought about Pinehearst when he reached out and took away her pain. He had a way of touching her that made her willing to forgive anything.

Now she felt guilty. She felt like _she_ was betraying him. It was amazing how he did that. He killed her, and yet he still had a hold over her. She hated herself for agreeing to work against this man more than she hated him for anything he had done. He had destroyed her life in so many ways, but he always managed to fix it. She did not want to hurt him. She did not want revenge. She did not want to take responsibility for ending what she started with Sylar.

As quietly as she could, Elle climbed out of the bed. She checked to make sure she had not awakened Sylar. She slowly pulled on her clothes and slipped her feet into her heels. Then she silently made her way to the door, leaving behind everything else she owned, all of which was in a crinkly plastic bag. She reached out for the door handle, but when she tried to turn it, it would not move.

"Where are you going?" Sylar asked from the bed.

Elle froze. She told herself that he could not possibly know what was going on in her head. "Nowhere. I just wanted to get some fresh air." Elle rolled her eyes at herself. That would be an obvious lie even if he did not have an ability to tell him that. She turned to face him and tried to flip the light switch next to the door, but she realized it was already in the on position. She remembered then that she had destroyed that light earlier.

Sylar switched on the lamp attached to the wall next to the bed. He looked confused, like he was trying to decide if he had a right to question her at all. "Where are you really going?"

There was no way for her to explain the real reason she was leaving. "Here's the thing, this was an assignment to me. I have always been honest about that. I can't stay here with you." She decided she could be a little more forthcoming. "You forgive me for moments because I'm in a bad way. But as soon as I'm better, you go right back to hating me. I'm not going to wait around for that to happen."

Sylar shook his head. "That's not going to happen. It's different this time" He did not sound too sure about that. It was more like he wanted it to be true. "I—I want to help you."

She did not know how to tell him that was the reason she needed to leave. "Look, you did, okay? And then you killed me, and you ended it. It was over. You don't owe me anything anymore. You didn't bring me back; you didn't try to rape me. This isn't on you. It's on Rebel and Bennet."

He sat up more fully. "Bennet? What does Bennet have to do with anything?"

That was a hell of a mistake to make. Again, the truth was no good. If he knew Bennet was involved, he would know something was off. She shrugged. "He works for the government. They were his agents. I know we were never exactly close, but we go way back." Luckily, she stopped herself from say that Bennet thought she was dead. That was one lie she definitely did not want to tell. "I'm just saying that if I was going to blame anyone for what happened, other than the guy who did it, it would be Bennet. That's not the point. The point is, you wanted to help me, and you did, and you fixed me, and now I have to go." She tried to open the door again, but the handle still would not move.

"I know what this is," Sylar said. In that moment, Elle felt panic rising in her chest, until he spoke again. "It was too soon, and now you're worried that I'm going to expect something from you, but you're the one who pushed for this. The last thing I want to do is pressure you into anything."

Relief washed over Elle. She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "I can't take it when you're nice to me. When I showed up and you were threatening to kill me and telling me to shut up, that was good, and I could do my job then. But you're being nice to me, and it's complicating everything. Please let me go."

Sylar seemed to be at a loss for what to do. "Go where? What are you going to do? Everyone thinks you're dead. I don't want to imprison you in this room, but I'm worried about what's going to happen to you if you leave. I just... I don't want anything to happen to you."

Elle sat down on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands. Sylar put a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She was so close to tell him that she was supposed to kill him. Because if she was going to stay, he was going to have to find out eventually. But all she could say was, "You're going to hate me." She shrugged off his hand and scooted back on the bed, kicking off her shoes. Then she climbed under the covers, fully dressed. "I didn't expect to feel anything for you."

He stayed sitting up and looked down on her. "We still have the other bed. Do you want--"

"No." She pulled him down. "I still want you near me." She did not worry about the contradiction of her trying to leave just minutes before.

"I can keep you just as safe from over there."

There were far more factors at work there than just safety. "I want you right here." She lay against his chest and nestled against his neck, breathing deeply.

He brought his arm up to rub her back. "What you said before, about me hating you when you're fixed, that's not going to happen."

That was what he said before. Because it was different this time. That was what they always said, but Elle realized that those words alone did not mean anything without context. It was different this time; this time she was supposed to kill him. That difference felt like it would tip the scales in the other direction. "How can you be so sure?"

She felt him shake his head. "I don't know exactly, but... Elle, I--"

She clamped her hand over his mouth. "You don't have to say it."

Sylar pulled her arm away so that he could speak. "You don't even know what I was going to say."

That was true, and she did not want to know. She kept her head down and her face hidden from him. "I can see the general direction this is going, and it might seem like the right time, but trust me, it isn't. You're worried about me. You don't want anything to happen to me. That's all I can take right now."

He seemed to think about that for a second. "Okay."

He moved his hand up into her hair, which felt more intimate that anything he could have said. Feeling his touch again, Elle knew that she did not want to leave him and she did not want to kill him. She wondered how long she could go on before she was forced to do one or the other. And then there was always that third possibility, that Sylar would find out about her assignment and kill her before she got the chance to do either.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note:** So with me starting all those other stories, you may have thought that I was neglecting this one. But fear not. This chapter assumes that you've seen "Into Asylum." But if you haven't, one, there are spoilers, and two, I don't leave that much unexplained. If you have seen it, I play with the dialogue and motivations a little because things are different this time around. (And because I did not take the most detailed notes when I re-watched it. But this is AU, so this is how it happens for this story.)

–

–

**Chapter 18:**

Once Elle had settled down for the second time that night, Sylar allowed himself to fall back to sleep. It was not until the morning that he really thought about the events of that night.

She tried to leave. Elle was so scared of being alone that she refused to sleep in a separate bed from him, but after they had sex, she wanted to leave. She would rather take her chances in the backyard of the government's agents than stay there with him. Maybe he was wrong to stop her. Maybe everything he did that night was wrong.

He knew that it was a bad idea for them to have sex, and he could not put all the blame on her for what happened. He knew that it would not fix anything, he knew that it was too soon, and he knew that she would regret making that choice. And yet, he still had sex with her, and by the time it got to that point, he was not thinking about what she needed anymore. He was vigilant about watching for any sign that she wanted or needed to stop, but beyond that, he got caught up in his own desires and not what was right for Elle. She told him that she would prefer if he just lay there, that it would be better if he did nothing. He completely disregarded that. He could tell himself that he had sex with her to honor her wishes, but that was not entirely true.

Elle was still lying against his chest. Sylar tried to move his arm out from under her without bothering her, but he was unsuccessful. Elle woke abruptly. There was something awkward about the fact that she was completely dressed and he was not. As she became aware of his state of undress, she quickly pushed herself away from him. Then, with a heavy sigh of regret, it seemed that memories from the night before came back to her. She looked unsure as to what she should do next. Sylar watched her, not really sure what he should do either.

She got up from the bed and looked around the room. "Okay, so we're here. What's the plan for today?"

Sylar had thought a lot about what to do in Washington, how to deal with the annoyance that was this government agency. He needed to understand how these people think. It was not the Company, and he wanted to learn the differences. "Well, I'm going to Washington to learn more about Building 26, but I don't know what you're going to do. I don't think you should go with me. Will you be okay staying here alone today?"

She hesitated. Then with something resembling false bravado, she said, "Yeah, I'm a big girl, Gabriel. I can take care of myself. It's just sometimes at night... You do what you have to do. I'll be fine." She looked at the ceiling, at the floor. She was looking anywhere but at him.

It bothered Sylar that she was avoiding eye contact, that she was being a little distant. It was convenient in the sense that she did not seem too worried about being left alone. And it was better for her to think that she could take care of herself. However, it was not good that she had regrets so strong that she could not even look at him. "I'll be back tonight," he said.

Elle nodded, as if maybe it did not really matter to her if he came back or not. Sylar thought about before, when she tried to leave, when he forced her to stay. She never actually said that it was not too soon for her. She said she wanted him there, and she meant it, but she never said anything else about that. She did give him a reason for her leaving, that she was afraid he would hate her once she was better. That made sense. It was a valid fear, but he did not really believe that was the whole story of why she had begged him to let her go. "You know, Elle, if you still want to leave, I can't really stop you. I _won't_ stop you this time."

She considered this for a moment, and then she finally looked at him. "How much do you really want me here? I mean, let's assume you've given me all the help you can. How much would it matter to you if I left?"

That was exactly the kind of question Sylar wanted to avoid answering., and it was exactly the kind of thing she did not want him to say the night before. "I don't think that should really be a factor. You should just make the decision based on what you want to do."

Elle sighed heavily. That answer was a cop out, and she apparently knew it. Sylar did not want to wait to hear what she would say to that. She had her chance to talk about the night before, and she had clearly avoided the subject. He jumped out of bed, pulled on his boxers, and headed for the bathroom. He turned around midstream and addressed her, walking backwards. "I'm going to take a shower, and then I'll get out of your way."

She watched him with sad eyes. Sylar closed the door to the bathroom behind him and took a deep breath. She was still broken, and he had not helped her at all. There were so many layers of hurt, so many ways in which she had been broken, and he could not get to most of them. If anything, she seemed worse. Just as he predicted the night before, she had lost a piece of whatever it was that made her feel safe. She still wanted him around for his abilities, but something else was gone now.

–

Sylar knew exactly where he needed to go to learn more about the people of Building 26. He needed to find the unknown variable, and that was Emil Danko. Bennet was still just Bennet, and Nathan was still just a politician, but Danko was new. Understanding Danko was the key to everything.

He tracked Danko into Arlington and waited outside an apartment, blending in and listening to the chatter. As he heard about the geometry teacher, the deaths of the agents, that no one knew what happened, Sylar formulated a plan. He left the outside of the building, where there were too many people who might know his face, and broke into the backseat of Danko's car.

When Danko got into the car, he did not even notice Sylar in the backseat. He just started the engine and pushed in the cigarette charger. Sylar leaned forward. "I love this song." He was not even paying attention the song. He just wanted to unnerve the other man, and he was successful at that.

Danko put his hand on his gun, but Sylar shook his head while preventing him from doing anything. "You don't want to do that."

"You have no idea what I want," Danko said calmly.

Sylar smirked at this. "I heard about what happened in there. Must have been quite a bloodbath. How many of your men did you lose?"

"Three," he drawled.

Sylar nodded thoughtfully. "You and I want the same thing, to kill people like me. I think we should pool our resources."'

Danko considered this for a moment. "And what's in it for you?"

Sylar shrugged. "You fascinate me. And you are in _way_ over your head. I can help. I can find the guy."

–

After Sylar left, Elle watched the Today Show, but that got boring quickly. She spent the next half hour flipping around news channels to see if they were talking about anything or anyone related to Building 26. None of them were, at least not when she was watching. Once she turned off the television, she took the fastest shower of her life and dried off quickly. That was the one caveat. She could take care of herself, so long as she was not wet.

By the time she got dressed, it was still only ten in the morning. She needed to find something to do with her day. So she called Rebel. After assuring him that Sylar would not be coming back anytime soon, she asked if he would meet her at the motel.

Elle's reasons for wanting to see Claude were twofold. One, she wanted to feel him out about the second part of her mission. How important was that really? Doing that would require a little subtlety that could not be achieved over the phone. Two, she needed to go shopping, or to be more accurate, shoplifting. There also might have been a third lesser reason of not really wanting to be alone.

It took Claude about an hour to get there. While she waited, Elle watched more news shows with no coverage of anything she cared about. When he did finally arrive, of course he wanted to talk about how her assignment was going. "Great," she said brightly. "Everything is great."

Claude crossed his arms. "We haven't really gotten the chance to talk about what happened yet."

Somehow, rather impossibly, Elle had forgotten about that. It just was not something that she liked to think about. She appreciated his interest, but she did not want to give him any reason to pull her off the assignment. "You know, it was hardly anything. He tried to force himself on me, and Sylar came back almost immediately." She tried to wave it away. "I might have been a little emotional on the day; I don't even remember what I said to Bennet, but I probably made it sound worse than it was."

He looked at her sternly, like a gentler incarnation of her father's disappointment. "Are you starting to feel things again?"

Again, Claude was not Bennet. He was not like anyone else that she had worked for. She believed that he wanted to help her and that he wanted her to feel human again, which she did. She still lied to him. "Not really."

He sighed. "Elle, we're going to protect you no matter what. So if you don't think that you can do the job anymore, you can just--"

"I can do the job! I'm doing great. I am days away from being able to kill him." That was definitely not what she meant to say, but she could not stop herself. After all the times her father had doubted her, it was a reflex for her to insist that she was capable of doing her job. Claude just trying to be nice, and it had still stung. She had to say it anyway. It was clear from what he was saying that at the slightest hesitation he would pull the plug on her. On her mission, she corrected, but what would that really mean for her?

Well, part one was a bust. There would be no feeling out what would happen if she refused to kill Sylar. So instead, she told the saga of leaving her clothes behind in the rental car and asked him to help her steal some more.

–

On his way to find the evolved human, James Martin, Sylar ran into an agent he had seen outside the apartment, literally bumping shoulders with the man. The agent seemed distracted, and barely looked at Sylar, which suited Sylar just fine. A minute later, in the direction the agent had come from, he found that same agent with two gunshot wounds to the chest.

Sylar looked back at the man he had bumped into, but he was gone. A shapeshifter. That should be interesting.

He crouched over the body, realizing just how long it had been since he killed someone. There was that one agent whose neck he broke, but that had been quick and clean and not any fun. Without really thinking about it, Sylar cut through the dead agent's neck until he had completely decapitated the corpse. And then he had a head and no use for it. He decided to give it to Danko.

–

After he had delivered his present and called Danko to explain what it meant, Sylar went back to the motel to check on Elle, but she was not there. He looked around the buildings, and she was nowhere to be found. He should have just let her leave when she wanted to. Or maybe he should have told her this morning that it would matter to him if she left. He checked the room one last time, and then he left. He had a shapeshifter to find.

Sylar went directly from the motel to James Martin's apartment. He wanted something to distract him from Elle, even though part of the reason he was doing this was for her. On the other hand, if she was gone, he had his own reasons for wanting to cultivate this partnership with Danko. He thought about that steady source of brains, which just reminded him of Elle saying that she was a zombie. He had said that first day in the car that he did not want to have sex with a zombie, and Elle... Elle's response was to say that she did not particularly want to sleep with him either. That was not really a conversation he wanted to remember, and he was relieved when he arrived at Martin's apartment.

It was probably that thinking about Elle that caused Sylar not to pay strict attention to his surroundings. He did not even hear Danko enter the room until the other man had a gun pointed at his head. "I knew you'd come here. You're very predictable."

Well, if he was supposed to be finding Martin, where else would he start? Sylar turned around slowly, holding his hands up in a mocking gesture. This was not the first gun he had pointed at him, and it was starting to lose its effect, especially considering just the number of time he had actually been shot. Maybe Danko would hit the right spot, but Sylar did not find it likely.

Danko continued. "I knew that you wouldn't be able to resist this one. I've read your files. I know your M.O. You like to take on characters, affect accents. You're so desperate to be someone else. Shapeshifting is your escape."

Sylar listened to everything that Danko said. It did not sound particularly accurate to him, but if it was in the files... Maybe he did want to be someone else. Sylar remembered that there was a time when he had liked himself, when he had thought it was stupid for Michelle, or Candice, or whoever she really was, to want to be someone else. Somewhere along the line he had lost that. If he tried to think of what he wanted to escape from, that would bring him back to thoughts of Elle and the empty motel room, and his mind was not going to go there. He did not know how to respond to what Danko said, so he did not bother. He just put his hands down and shrugged a little.

Danko took a step closer. "I could just kill you right now, put you out of your misery."

Sylar turned his back to look around the apartment. He was not scared of Danko's gun. "The part of my brain that you would have to hit to kill me is microscopic." He was not sure if that was strictly true, but it sounded good. "The way I see it, you could use someone like me. I can round them all up for you. You don't know what you're doing. You chased a shapeshifter." He laughed, looking at Danko again. "You don't chase a shapeshifter. I'm just one man, but I could help you find them all."

Danko lowered his gun, and from there, the real discussion began. They were united in a common goal, taking down James Martin. Sylar did not point out that he himself had killed more than four of Danko's men. Those details were no longer relevant. Going through the apartment, trashing the apartment, Sylar discovered some things about Martin. He was a creature of routine. He was trying on personalities, trying to get power that he could never find in real life. It only took a few more minutes of digging to find what Martin wanted that power for, to get women. It seemed like such a petty goal. Sylar had also spent much of his time seeking power, and he liked to think that he had achieved it in a much classier way. With that line of thought, Elle's absence butted up against his memory, but he pushed that away again.

Sylar found a matchbook from a nightclub called The Garden of Eden. There was Martin's routine. It was their only lead, but Sylar was certain that it was the only one they needed. He was in Martin's head. He understood this man.

At the club, Danko asked how they would know which one of the men was Martin. Sylar did not think it would be that difficult to figure out and he scanned the room for possibilities. His eyes locked on Danko, a different Danko, chatting up an attractive woman. He nudged the one standing next to him and pointed at the impostor.

Danko was confused. "Why would he want to be me?"

Personally, Sylar thought this development was hilarious. "He wants power. Apparently, he thinks that's something you have." He smirked, watching faux Danko. "He does a better you than you."

Just then, faux Danko saw them and made a run for it. Sylar shook his head. They should not have just been standing there, waiting to be seen. Before Sylar could really stop him, the real Danko was back to chasing a shapeshifter. Sylar walked through the club more cautiously, looking out for doubles or anything that was off. After a few minutes, he saw a Danko leaning against the rail across the club from him. Sylar could tell that this was the real Danko because he was talking to a fake Sylar.

Sylar fought the tide to make his way over to the other side, but by the time he got close, Danko was heading to the back door with a disguised Martin. Sylar was only a few yards behind when he heard the gunshot. He hurried out the door to find Danko standing over a dying vision of Sylar. "You killed him," Sylar said, somewhat disappointed. He had thought that the two of them had an understanding.

"No," Danko said. "He's still alive. But when you..., can you do it without leaving a mark?"

Understanding exactly what Danko had in mind, Sylar smiled and closed the door behind him.

–

It was well after midnight when Sylar finally got back to his motel room. The first thing he noticed was that the light was on inside the room, shining through the curtain. Sylar was certain that he had not left any lights on. In fact, the main lamp was still broken the last time he was there. The "Do no disturb " sign was still hanging on the door, almost mockingly.

He opened the door cautiously, expecting an ambush. Instead, he found Elle, who sat straight up in bed at the noise, her hand lighting up with electricity. When she saw that it was him, she sighed in relief and lay her head back against the pillow. "How was your day?" she asked through a yawn.

Sylar had believed so completely that Elle had left, that he just stared at her for a few moments. She lifted her head a little and squinted at him, and he realized that he needed to answer the question. "It was fine." He did not want to tell her the specifics. For some reason, he thought she might have a problem with him murdering the very people she was asking him to help. "Uh, what did you do today?"

She closed her eyes. "I went shopping. I got shorts," she said in a dreamy voice. That explained where she was that afternoon. "Will you turn off the light when you come to bed?"

She was half asleep when she said this, and Sylar did not want to disturb her to ask for clarification. The implication was that she expected him to sleep in the same bed. She had been unwavering on that point for days. However, on the other hand, part of that was because she felt that she could not get to sleep without him near, which clearly was no longer the case. Considering how awkward things had been that morning, he was not sure how she felt about any of that anymore. But, after getting ready for bed, he still climbed under the covers with her. He noted that she was wearing pajama bottoms again, which was probably what she meant when she said she got shorts. As he turned off the light, he wondered how she could afford to buy anything.

Sylar had some difficulty falling to sleep. He had spent the whole night thinking that Elle was gone. He had explained it to himself in such a way that he understood exactly why she had left. Now, he was having a little trouble understanding why she had stayed.

--

--

**Author's Note:** My notes on that nightclub scene are literally: "Go there, find Martin as Danko. So then he's Sylar. How the hell does Sylar do it without cutting open the head?" Yeah, that's not on me to explain. It's just canon. (And that's how vague my notes were by the end.)


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

When Elle woke up the next morning, Sylar was already up, showered, and dressed. It was not even seven yet. Elle had not checked the clock when he got in the night before, but she was sure that it had been late. She realized then that she still had no idea what he had done that day. She sat up, scratching the back of her head. "Are you going somewhere?"

He looked at her like maybe he had been thinking about slipping out the door while she was still sleeping. "Yeah, I just have some things that I need to follow up on."

That was vague. Elle nodded as though she understood perfectly. "Are you going to be gone all day again? Because it gets kind of boring being alone."

He hesitated. "I know. I'll try to get back earlier tonight."

He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss, which was surprisingly affectionate for him. By the time Elle had recovered from this unexpected gesture, he was at the door. "See you tonight," she said as he left.

Elle stared at the door for a long time after he left. They had never actually talked about what happened between them two nights before, not just the sex, but the rest of it too. She felt her lips. Apparently, he did not think they needed to talk about it, and that suited Elle just fine. If that kiss was any indication of what he was feeling, she was glad she had stopped him from saying anything that night.

–

Bennet watched the medical personnel zip up the body bag. He had been told that Sylar was in that bag. He had _seen_ Sylar's dead body in that bag, but something felt wrong about this. He went for a short walk away from the area and pulled out his phone. After a second of indecision, he dialed Rebel. "Have you hear anything from our friend?"

Rebel briefly relayed the conversation he had with Elle the day before, but that was not what Bennet was looking for. He thanked his former partner and hung up. Then, after a little more deliberation, he called Elle directly.

She answered by saying, "This is unexpected. I thought I wasn't supposed to contact you."

Bennet rolled his eyes at her snotty tone. "Well, now I'm contacting you. There's a situation here, and I just need to know when you last saw Sylar."

"Um, he left here about an hour ago. Why?"

He continued to carefully examine her tone. She sounded confused, curious. There was nothing to indicate that she was hiding anything. He glanced back at the body bag being loaded onto a truck. Danko claimed that he killed Sylar sometime in the middle of the night. He did not want to jump to any conclusions just yet. "Do me a favor. Just to make sure that was the real Sylar and get back to me."

As he flipped shut the phone, he could hear her ask what he meant by that. He did not want to get into it with her. He wanted to leave it vague, and let her figure things out for herself. She called back immediately, but he ignored the call and turned off his phone.

–

From the moment Bennet hung up on her, Elle started slowly freaking out. What did he know that she didn't? Why would he think that the Sylar who left this morning was not the "real Sylar?" Who else could it be? She called back several times, but he would not take her calls. She tried calling Rebel, but he apparently did not know what was going on with Bennet either.

She spent the entire day alone in the motel room, with no idea where Sylar was or how to contact him. When she thought about it, she realized that he had acted a little strangely the night before and that morning. She forced herself to remember specifics. When he first saw her, he had looked at her like he was not expecting her, and maybe it was even more than that. She could not be sure if her memory was playing tricks on her, but maybe he had even looked at her like she was an unexpected complication. And when he kissed her goodbye, maybe that had not been a sign of how he felt about her. Maybe it had just been that this impostor did not know anything about their dynamic. She tried to remember if he had ever even said her name, but she did not think so. When she said that she went shopping, he did not express surprise that she had gone out alone or ask about where she had gotten the money for shopping, and he did not know that she had an invisible friend to help with that.

And then, say it was a fake Sylar. That could only be explained by a shapeshifter or illusionist. She had gotten a good enough look at him that she would have noticed if it was not his face and body. But the government did not work with evolved humans. Why would one of them be doing this without Rebel knowing? That brought her right around to her first question, what did Bennet know?

These were the thoughts that went through Elle's head all day. She waited in the room, thinking that this fake Sylar might not even come back. Why would he want to? She did not know much about being a shapeshifter or taking on different personalities, and she did not know what his goal might be, but she was not sure how she could possibly be part of it.

Finally, around seven in the evening, Elle heard the lock in the door click. She created a ball of electricity in her hand, not to use it, just to see how he would react. He reacted like Sylar, completely unfazed by the threat. He turned his back on her to throw the metal lock that had replaced chains on motel doors. Okay, Elle thought, don't jump to conclusions. That may only mean that he was confident that he was passing. She took a deep breath. "What did you do today?"

He looked at her and shrugged. "It's not really important." He came over and sat next to her on the bed. "I did find us a place to live though. I mean, we're going to be staying in Washington for a while, so I thought we should stop living out of motels."

Elle liked the sound of that. He had found a place for them to live together. She liked thinking that they were living together. It sounded more permanent than what they really had. And that was part of the problem. That displayed another possible misunderstanding on his part. "What kind of place?"

"An apartment. It's a little small, but the previous owner won't be needing it anymore. And no one will notice," he added as an afterthought. There was something in the way he talked to her, like she was fragile. That was a very Sylar thing to do.

Elle decided that it was time to test him. It was not so easy for her to figure out if he was the real one, especially not knowing exactly what alternative Bennet had in mind. "So are we living together now or are you just taking me in like as charity?"

Sylar sighed, like he was tired of hearing this kind of stuff from her. That was also something he would do. "You're not a charity case, Elle."

Now he had definitely said her name. That only meant that he had done some research, maybe that he had learned about what happened to the agents in Kansas, and that might explain his attitude now. She went further. "Do you remember what you said to me the day you killed my father?"

He shook his head, not in response, but as if to say that he did not want to go back to that time. "Whatever I said, I'm sure it was--"

"No." Elle cut him off. "I want you to remember. Just trace it back. You killed him, and then what did you do?"

He stared back at her. He did not want to talk about this; she could see it in his eyes. "I waited for you. I wanted to make sure that you knew. And then, you didn't see me, but I followed you. Because I intended to kill you. And you took me straight to Bennet." He smiled a little, apologetically. "And that was great because I got two for the price of one." He paused to think about what was next. "I said it was your fault."

That was definitely something that would take a lot of research to find out. She was starting to believe that this was Sylar. "Well, as much as anyone else."

He shook his head sadly. "Even more so."

One more thing, and she would let this go. "Do you still believe that?" She did not know how that was going to help her determine his legitimacy as Sylar. She supposed it would not be the one word answer but whatever he used to back it up that would tell her.

"Is this what you've been sitting here thinking about all day?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie?"

That pretty much told her what his answer was going to be. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know the truth."

He stood and looked at the wall above her head. It was a while before he answered. "When I said that, I wasn't just referring to your father, but to all of them, all the people I killed. And yeah, I do still think that you are partly to blame for all of their deaths. I forgave you, but that doesn't mean that you didn't do it. So you did horrible things to me, and I did horrible things to you. Why don't we just call it even?"

There were other people there when he told her she was to blame. It was just prisoners and Bennet, but still, people witnessed it. It was conceivable that there were people who knew about what happened between them at Pinehearst. But he was bringing their history together in a comprehensive way, and she believed that this was a person who had firsthand knowledge of the events. This was Sylar, no matter what Bennet thought he knew. "Okay," she said. "When do I get to see this apartment?"

He seemed pleased by her response. "We can go now. We'll just skip out on the bill. They don't have our names. And if the clerk does remember my face, I'm wanted for a lot worse than that. Let's go."

Elle was a little concerned about just how enthusiastic his response was. A little bit of doubt crept back into her mind. As she stood, she said, "You know, you told me that the murders weren't my fault. In the bathroom, after I was raped." She knew for a fact that it was just him and her in there.

He shook his head with a slight smile. "I never said that, and you know it."

Elle returned the smile, relieved. "Oh, right. Lie detector." Now that she was sure about his identity, Elle was excited about moving. Staying in motel rooms like this was not helping her move on. She gathered up her things quickly, now in two shopping bags instead of one.

On her way to the car, she texted Bennet. "Its really him."

–

–

**Author's Note: **This chapter is a little short, but I liked that as an ending. So there you go. Also, "the metal lock that had replaced chains on motel doors," what are those things called anyway? And thirdly, I know the difference between "its" and "it's" and so does Elle, but texting, she did not use an apostrophe. And yeah, I really put a lot of thought into that decision to omit the apostrophe.


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note:** As a warning, this chapter contains one instance of fleeting profanity. I generally try to stay away from it, but I couldn't think of another way to really express the sentiment properly. Also, I'm not entirely sure what year it's _supposed_ to be, but Claire has her GED so I stretched out the timeline. And for my purposes here, it is 2008.

–

–

**Chapter 20**

When he came back to her that night, Sylar had intended to tell Elle the truth. If he was going to move her into Agent Donner's apartment, she was going to need to know the whole story. But then she asked if the murders were her fault. He could have lied and said that they were not, but forgiving her had done nothing to change what she did or how he felt about it. He could sense that she did not want a lie right then anyway. So he was honest with her about that and just continued the lie of omission in not telling her about the most recent murders.

At the apartment, Elle did not ask the questions that Sylar expected, like where he found the apartment or what happened to the previous owner. Since he had killed and taken the place of the previous owner, those were questions Sylar wanted to avoid, but her lack of curiosity was disconcerting. Every time it seemed to him that they were making progress, she retreated back. The first morning after they had sex, she was distant and disinterested, and then that night and next morning, she had acted fairly normally. But now there was something off about her again. However, she had come to the apartment with him, and he decided to just put the rest of it aside.

At the very least, Sylar expected Elle to comment on the state of the apartment, which was undeniably a bachelor pad. There were clothes and other items strewn about and dishes piling up in the sink. Sylar had looked at the apartment before bringing her there; Danko had shown him the place, hand picking the man Sylar would become. Normally, Sylar liked things to be organized, everything in its place, but there was something about cleaning up someone else's mess that did not appeal to him. He would do it; he would have to if he was going to live there, but he was willing to put it off for just a little while longer. He was not, however, willing to put Elle off for any longer than necessary. So he brought her to the apartment before it was strictly ready for her.

Elle seemed excited when she saw the apartment. He supposed anything was better than spending night after night in seedy motels. She did not even seem to notice the mess. She was far more enchanted with Donner's CD and DVD collections. When Sylar offered to straighten up a little, she said, "No, don't, that'll give me something to do while your off doing whatever all day."

Sylar was not sure that it was really fair for her to have to clean the place, but since she was offering, he was not going to complain. The problem was that he needed something to do. They had a very awkward arrangement where they basically did not talk to each other much, but they did not really do anything else together either. They had at least two hours before it would be a reasonable time to go to bed. He gestured toward the kitchen, "I'm going to see what kind of food he has. See if I can make dinner."

Elle nodded. "I'll try to find some clean linens for the bed," she said, and then she headed into the bedroom.

That started their night of spending most of their time in different rooms from each other. The only time they were really together was when they ate dinner, which consisted of microwaved meals that did not require Sylar to do any dishes.

There were two things that made Sylar think Elle might have reconsidered her position on the sleeping arrangement. One was that she chose to be in a different room from him whenever possible, despite the fact that they had just spent the entire day apart, and the other was that she wore one of Donner's shirts to bed. Sylar had not realized it until that moment, but every night since she was attacked, except the night they had sex, she had slept in the shirt he gave her with the bullet holes. Tonight, she had UCONN emblazoned across her chest. This suggested to Sylar that now she had more options than just depending on him, and when space was made available, she was now willing to take it. For those reasons, he offered to sleep on the couch.

Elle sighed and got into the bed. "I thought we were done with that."

"But it's different now." Sylar did not want it to be different. As she was starting to pull away, he realized that he liked having her depend on him. It was good for her to be more self-sufficient though. "The living room acts as a gateway to the bedroom, so I'll be able to protect you even better from out there."

Elle rolled her eyes. "Tell you what, if I ever decide that I don't want you to sleep with me, I'll just tell you. So you don't have to ask every night anymore."

That was really all Sylar needed to hear. He did not really want to sleep on the couch. The bed at least had clean sheets. Having gotten the okay from Elle, he climbed under those sheets now.

Ell turned on her side to face him. "You're being too nice again."

That was a complaint he rarely got. "I'm sorry. What would you have preferred I said?"

"Hmm." Elle put some thought into it. "Something along the lines of: Elle, I'm taking the bed. Now, if you want to share it, that's fine with me, but if not, there's a perfectly good couch out there. And you should know that the bed has a strict no clothes policy."

Sylar chuckled a little, although he really did not need her putting those ideas in his head. "Yeah, let's pretend I said that."

"You know," she said placing a hand on his chest. "It's not really about how safe I actually am."

He looked down at her hand, his breath catching in his throat. "It's not?"

"Nah." She shook her head. "The odds are pretty low that anything like that is going to happen again, and I have defenses of my own." She was slowly moving closer to him as she spoke, until finally, she settled on top of him. "It's really about how safe I _feel._ And I feel safer when you're--"

She cut off the end of her own sentence by lowering her head that last few millimeters to kiss him. She surprised Sylar by doing that. Obviously, there was a build up, but he really was not expecting it to go anywhere. When they had sex two night before, that was an experiment, one that he did not think had worked. Sure, he had kissed her that morning, but that had been quick, barely anything. It was just the only way he could think of to tell her that he wanted her to stay without actually telling her that.

He brought his hand up to hold her head in place, but he realized that he did not want to force her into anything. He wanted her to be able to pull away if she needed. So he moved his hand down her back. As he was thinking about the kiss, his hand kept moving on its own initiative, until it slipped inside the waistband of her pajama shorts. He pulled his hand completely away from her body. He did not want to make this into any more than it was.

She lifted her head and gave him a searching look. Then she rolled onto her back and tugged at the UCONN shirt. "I think we should implement that dress code now."

–

In the morning, Sylar left to do whatever it was that he did with his days now. Elle figured that he would tell her what that was eventually, and she did not press him on the subject. Besides, for once, she had something to do with her day. Normally, she was not that crazy about cleaning, but today there was something that really appealed to her about being able to put things back in order. She was even looking forward to it a little.

After a couple hours, when the dishes were all clean, the living room was straightened up, and a load of clothes were in the dryer down in the basement laundry room, her enthusiasm started to wane a little. She decided it was time to take a break. She looked around for something to do. She had no interest in watching television; that was all she had done the day before, other than obsess about what Bennet had said. Finally, her eyes settled on a framed photograph of several college aged men posing and smiling. She realized that she did not know anything about the previous occupant of this apartment, not even enough to pick him out of a picture.

She went over to the desk to do some snooping. There was nothing else to do. She found a letter from the University of Connecticut Alumni Association addressed to Steve Donner. She looked at the picture again and tried to determine which one of them looked like a Steve to her, but none of them did. She opened the top drawer to see what else she could find out. She found a folder labeled "Financials for 2008." That looked promising. She opened it, and the first thing that fell out was a loose pay stub. She picked it up off the floor. At first, she just scanned it to get a general idea of what he did for a living, but then she realized that Steve Donner got his pay from the Department of Homeland Security.

Now a lot more focused, she went through the financial records. He had only been receiving paychecks from the Department for a couple months, since about the time Building 26 was created. That was a little weird, but it was really compounded by Bennet's offhand comment. "Just make sure that was the real Sylar." She was living in the apartment of a man she now believed was a Building 26 agent with a man that Bennet had reason to believe was not the real Sylar. That was just great.

She started ripping through the desk. She did not know what she was looking for until she found it. Sylar's file. It was the only file of its kind that was in the desk. So sometime during the day before, Steve Donner had access to all the information anyone had about Gabriel "Sylar" Gray. There was nothing about what happened at Pinehearst and no detailed accounts of the day he killed her father, but still, it was Sylar's file. Donner had been researching Sylar. She really needed to know what Bennet knew.

–

The only thing Elle's text had confirmed was that Sylar was alive. Bennet did not want to get too far ahead of himself by thinking that it meant any more than that. Danko did not kill Sylar, but he might really think that he had. Bennet doubted that was the case; he believed that Danko and Sylar were in on this together, whatever _this_ was. But he did not have any proof. So he played it close to the vest, watching for anything that might be off.

Sometime around lunchtime he got a phone call from Elle. He considered ignoring it, because she knew that she was not supposed to contact him directly.. However, since he initiated this in the first place, the least he could do was kindly reminder of that fact. "You can't call me here." Despite how abrupt a greeting that was, he was trying to sound nice.

Elle was surprisingly distraught. "Why did you think that he might not be the real Sylar?"

"It doesn't matter," Bennet said. "It is him, so--"

"I need to know! Something happened, Noah."

It was not like her to be this emotional. She had not even sounded this upset when she called him the morning after her rape. "Whoa, calm down. What happened?"

"He moved me. He took me to the apartment of some guy, Steve Donner. One of your guys. Is that who you thought it was? If he's not the real Sylar, did you think it was Donner?"

Donner. That was good to know. Bennet looked out his window overlooking the control room, but he did not see the red haired agent. "But you confirmed his identity."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I may have been wrong."

"Elle, how could you be wrong? As long as you saw him use one of his abilities, I'm sure it was him."

There was a pregnant pause, and Bennet knew what she was going to say even before she started. "I don't know if I really did."

Bennet closed his eyes and sighed. She used to be better than that. "I called you yesterday morning because they showed me his dead body. So next time you see Sylar, make him use one of the abilities. And don't contact me again unless it isn't him." He flipped the phone shut.

–

Sylar knew that he was no longer concerned with helping Elle or Rebel. He was not opposed to Rebel's goals, and he had no intention of getting in the way if Rebel moved against the government. But he understood, as he finished his second day of working at Building 26, that he was there for the powers and the challenge. Now that the government was no longer hassling him, he found that he cared less about what effects this program had on others of his kind. There were actually very few people that he cared about at all.

When Sylar, in Donner's body, parked Donner's car in front of Donner's apartment, he noticed Danko pulling into the lot behind him. Sylar went over to meet him, pulling open the driver's door before his new boss had a chance to do it himself. "What are you doing here?" Sylar asked.

Danko got out of the car, which was not exactly what Sylar wanted him to do. "We have to talk."

"Okay," Sylar said, even though it was far from okay with him that Danko had followed him. "We can talk right here."

Danko pushed past him. "No. Inside."

Sylar had to jog a little to catch up. He could not think of anything to give as a reason for not wanting Danko to go into the apartment. He considered that maybe Danko had outlived his usefulness, but he was not quite ready to burn that bridge yet. It did not take long for them to reach the door of the second floor apartment, and Sylar decided that killing Danko would always be an option later. He shifted back into himself, ignoring Danko's curious gaze, before turning the key in the lock. "Just give me a second to straighten up."

When he opened the door, Elle was staring at it with a ball of electricity in her hand. This was the third time she had greeted him like that. "So I heard you died."

He should have realized that she would find out about that eventually. He shook his head slightly and made a cutting at his neck. It was bad enough that he was not going to be able to hide her presence from Danko because he had already heard her voice, Sylar did not want him to know about the ability. She seemed confused by his reaction, and the electricity died down in her hand just in time that Danko might have missed it.

Even though there was no electricity, Elle hid her hand awkwardly behind her back when Danko came through the door. Seeing her, something clicked for him. "Oh, that's right. I forgot about your mysterious blonde." He held out his hand for Elle to shake. "You must be the young lady who got Wolski and Reynolds killed."

Elle took his hand warily. "I'm pretty sure they got themselves killed."

Sylar took her by the shoulders and directed her toward the bedroom. He had to hold himself back from using her name as he said, "Would you mind going in the other room so that we can talk?" He did not care if that sounded dismissive or condescending; he just wanted to get her away from Danko. When the bedroom door was closed, he turned back to Danko. "She's not important, just some woman I picked up in Montana. She isn't of any interest to you. So just forget about her."

Danko nodded, although it did not really seem that he was listening. "Okay then."

Sylar wanted to get this over with. "So what did you want to talk about?"

Danko was looking at the bedroom door, but now he looked up at Sylar. "Harper came into my office today to tell me that he thinks you've—or actually that Donner has been a little off."

Sylar waited, but Danko did not say anything else. He raised his eyebrows. "You couldn't tell me that in the parking lot?"

"What I didn't want to say in the parking lot is that you need to stop being sloppy. My ass in on the line here. So I need to know that you can handle yourself as Donner."

Sylar rolled his eyes and started directing Danko toward the door. "Yeah, I got it. I'll be fine. So, if that's all, I need to--" He stopped because he did not really want to get into what he needed to do about Elle. Once Danko was out the door, on the other side of the threshold, Sylar said. "And I'm serious about... her. She's off limits."

After he closed the door, he went to the window to make sure that Danko really left. Then he called for Elle. "He's gone."

Elle opened the door cautiously. She came out, cracking her knuckles as a nervous habit. "I'm sorry," she said.

Sylar did not know what she would be sorry about. What happened was completely his fault. "You didn't--"

He was stopped by a current of electricity hitting him in the chest. It continued to stream full force for several seconds, pushing him back and pinning him against the wall. When she finally stopped, Sylar fell to the floor and was able to heal. It never got any less painful. He pulled himself up to his feet. "Why did you do that?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Elle gave a half-sob. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. It's just that I had to know. See, if you were the shapeshifter, you'd be fine, but if Donner was the shapeshifter, he'd be dead because shapeshifters can only shift shapes. It's just the body and not the identity. So if you have the abilities... I mean, they said you were dead. And after we--" she gestured back at the bedroom. "I really needed to know that you're you."

She was babbling, and she seemed really worried that he would be angry with her. Sylar pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her to reassure her that everything was okay. "This is my fault. I should have told you about Donner. I just didn't want you to know that I killed a shapeshifter. Not after all that talk about how the murders were your fault. Here." He turned her around so that her back was pressed against his chest. "You can see any ability you want." He held out one hand in front of her and created a ball of electricity. Then he let that die out and lifted the cushions off the couch and sent them flying across the living room. The only other ability he could think of that was easily demonstrable was alchemy, but he did not want to remind of her of that one, so he left it at electricity and telekinesis.

Elle turned around with a smile. She rubbed his chest, which had borne the brunt of her attack. "I guess there were less painful ways to test you."

He tipped her head up so that she was looking him in the eye. "You did the right thing."

She stared at him for several seconds. For a moment, it seemed like she was going to say something important, but then she gasped. "I have clothes in the laundry room." She broke away from him and got a basket out of the bedroom. "After I found the files, I completely forgot about that. I'll be right back."

When she was at the door, Sylar asked if she wanted him to go with her. "No," Elle said. "I'll be okay. I think it's good for me to do things on my own."

Sylar definitely did not want to get in the way of her regained independence. After she left, he checked the parking lot to make sure Danko's car was still gone. Then he looked around the apartment, finding the papers scattered on the desk. Those must have been the files she meant. He was looking over them to see what they really said about Donner, and he heard her phone ringing from the kitchen counter. He was not exactly sure why, but he went over to check the display. It said very simply, "Glasses." Sylar felt that designation should mean something to him. It took him a second to remember that Elle had once referred to Bennet as "old glasses himself." Without putting too much thought into it, he made the split second decision to shift into Elle and answered her phone. "Bennet?"

"Yeah," Even without this answer, it was very clearly Noah Bennet's voice. "I know I said we shouldn't talk anymore, but why did Danko just call me to tell me that he saw you alive?"

Sylar had a lot to process in that moment. He wondered if this meant that Bennet was Rebel the whole time. Something told him that should not be possible. He thought Rebel had an ability. And then there was Danko. He answered the only way he could think of. "Probably because he just saw me alive. What does he want you to do with me?"

"He wants me to take you down. He wants you in the basement with the rest of them. It doesn't matter; we'll protect you. We just need to hurry things along. Have you slept with Sylar yet?"

The question took Sylar completely by surprise. "Yeah," he said, the truth just slipping out.

"Okay. Good," Bennet said. "Then I think you should move on to Phase Two as soon as possible."

Sylar saw the doorknob turning, and he knew that he needed to end this conversation before Bennet would realize something was wrong. "Not a problem," he said as Elle opened the door. She stared at him, at herself standing in front of her. "I have to go," he told Bennet, and immediately hung up. He shifted back into himself and held up the phone. "That was Noah Bennet."

Elle's face went white, and she dropped the laundry basket on the floor. "Shit."

That was not a very encouraging response. "What is Phase Two?"

She laid her head down on the counter. "I told you you were going to hate me. Phase Two--" She stood up straight again. "I tried to leave; remember that. I wasn't going to do it. Phase One was to go to you and get you to help, and then Phase Two..." She paused. "That's when I kill you."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

Sylar did not say anything. He just stood there with an inscrutable look on his face. Elle waited for any reaction to what she had just told him, but there was nothing. The thought went through her head that he would not hurt her, but that was ridiculous. He always hurt her. "Bennet usually doesn't call me unless it's important. What did he want?"

Sylar gave a slight shake of his head. She imagined that was not really what he wanted to talk about right then. She hated Bennet so much in that moment. Every time she tried to call him, he would tell her that they should not be talking, but he just called her whenever he wanted. She cleared her throat. The first thing that came out was, "I didn't expect to feel anything for you."

She wished that she had not said that. That was not the way she wanted to play this. She was not going to pretend that there was any way to make this okay. She started again, trying to tie that into a better explanation. "I didn't expect to feel anything. And when I started feeling normal again, they warned me that I couldn't have it both ways. I couldn't care about the feelings I had for you and how nice you were, but not care that you murdered my father or about what you did on the beach. Because you killed me, Gabriel. And if you think that taking me to bed a couple times after I was raped will make up for that..." She shook her head, not wanting to risk the next part being a lie. She did not want him to know right then that it might have actually made up for it. "And it's not the same. I tried to stop you that night. With Trevor, I tried to stop you. I didn't want to hurt you, but I was working an assignment, following orders, doing the only thing I have ever known how to do. And I tried to stop you. But on the beach... When you killed me, that was something else.

"But hey, the jig is up. Obviously the element of surprise is gone, so I'll just go." She walked up to Sylar and took her phone out of his hand. She was really surprised that he let her, and she was starting to think that she might actually make it out of this alive, but when she went to the door, sidestepping the laundry, the knob would not turn. That made more sense.

His voice came from behind her. "Were you even really attacked?"

That question hit Elle hard. After everything they had been through, how could he ask her that? She knew that it was wrong to think of it in those terms; she knew that she was the one who had betrayed their connection this time, but she still wanted to point out the absurdity of that question. She turned around slowly. "Wow, you must think I'm really good to be able to maintain that lie all this time. Even though I told you that I could feel something breaking inside of me that night. Even though I insisted that it wasn't your fault and that you didn't owe me anything. Even though I said... I said that I was raped. I—I was raped, Gabriel."

It was as though nothing she said had gotten through to him. "Then why didn't they taser you? Why didn't you stop them when you easily could have?"

Elle wondered if she should remind him that he had a lie detector, and that this whole matter should be settled. She could not be lying. "They did taser me, a couple times, but it shouldn't really surprise you that my body doesn't respond to electric charges the same way a normal person's does. And you want to know why I didn't fight it, didn't just kill the guy while he was on top of me?" She gave a wry laugh. "It's because I didn't want to die. His friend had a gun pointed at my head, and I spent the entire time trying to decide whether it was worth the risk that I would get shot. By the time you came back, I had decided that I didn't want to die again." She shook her head. "It wasn't part of the plan. How could it be? I didn't know that you were going to get up and leave in the middle of the night."

Sylar shrugged. "You could have come up with it then."

She hated that he was still working this theory that she made up the attack. That did not even make sense to Elle. What did he think, that she had agents following her around? And wouldn't Luke have heard her calling them? "Bennet is one thing, but I'm not working with the government. You're the one who brought that guy to our apartment." She did not remember his name, but she knew who he was. "Which you have not even bothered to explain. So I think they did come up with it then, but they didn't let me in on it. They didn't even know who I was. There just... There wasn't any consent involved. Everything that happened, everything you saw, everything I _told_ you was real. That really happened to me, and you were helping me. But now, you're undoing all of that, so just... shut up."

She went for the door again, but it still would not move. She got a sense of deja vu from the last time she tried to leave him, but she did not think that it was going to work out as well this time. She turned to face him. "Okay, so you can either kill me or let me leave and never bother you again. And I finally have a preference."

He stared at her for a moment. "I'm sorry."

It kind of sounded like he was saying that he was sorry that he couldn't let her leave. Like, sorry but that's not an option. Elle decided that it was better to keep him talking. "Right," she said a little sarcastically. "Here we go. Sorry for what? Sorry you ever met me? Sorry you ever cared about me? Sorry you ever trusted me?"

Sylar flexed his jaw, and then he sighed. "I'm sorry that I doubted you. I should have realized that I knew it was real"

Elle had been gearing up for a fight, but that took the wind out of her sails. She had not expected him to actually be apologizing. "Oh."

He took a step toward her. "And I'm sorry that it took something like that for me to start being nice to you. I'm sorry that I never apologized for killing you or explained why I did it. It wasn't because I hated you. That's what you stopped me from telling the night you tried to leave." He was slowly getting closer to her. "I'm sorry that I hurt you in every way that a person could possibly be hurt and that I managed to find a new way by diminishing what happened to you." Having bridged about half of the distance, he stopped and took a moment to think. "But I'm not sorry that I met you. You saved my life that night, and anything else you did came later. I'm not sorry that I cared about you. As for whether I'm sorry that I trusted you, I have mixed feelings on that one. If I hadn't, then I would have left you at that abandoned restaurant in Montana, or the other restaurant, and you probably wouldn't have been raped. And I would do anything to make it so that didn't happen to you. But if I left you, then I wouldn't be with you now. That's another thing you stopped me from saying that night. I didn't just keep you from leaving because I was worried something was going to happen to you. I did it because I didn't want you to leave. I still don't want you to leave."

By the time he said this last part, he was right in front of her, cupping her face with his hand. "I don't understand," Elle said. She had a feeling that this had to be a trick. After all, he had kissed her on the beach, knowing what he was going to do next. That he did not want her to leave could have a couple different meanings. She waited for him to say whatever was going to be today's equivalent of "you were wrong."

He moved his hands down to her shoulders. "Okay, so you were sent here to kill me. It's not ideal. But I think that there might be a third option other than killing you or never seeing you again." He shook his head. "Because neither of those really appeal to me. I don't want to never see you again. That's the thing about relationships; you don't get to chose who you love. You're it for me, Elle. So we have to find a way to make this work."

Elle was a little overwhelmed because that was kind of the exact opposite of what he said on the beach. And against her better judgment, she thought she might believe him. He took her face in his hands again and leaned in to kiss her. She closed her eyes, but before his lips met hers, the phone in her hand began to ring. She opened her eyes again and lifted it up between them to see who it was. "It's Rebel."

Sylar took a step back from her. "Answer it. Tell him everything's fine, and Phase Two is a go."

Elle was a little uncomfortable with the fact that she did not know what Sylar was planning, but she was going to do what he said anyway. However, before she could open the phone, something occurred to her. "I don't know what Bennet said."

"That's okay." Sylar held out his hand. "I'll just pretend to be you."

"No." Elle hid the phone behind her back. She was not so overwhelmed that she forgot that she needed to protect Rebel's identity nor did she forget how distinctive his voice was. Now that Sylar knew about the plan, it was going to get harder for her to run interference between the two men.

Using his mind, Sylar forced her arm out from behind her back so that she was holding the phone out to him. She held tightly to it, trying to decide whether the best course of action would be to kill it. "Elle, give me the phone," Sylar said.

Elle shook her head, knowing that if he really wanted it, he could just take it from her. Just then, the phone stopped ringing. They both stared at it for a moment. She clutched the phone to her chest. "This wasn't his idea. He's only doing it for Bennet. So don't... You don't need to talk to him."

Sylar smiled. "Are you afraid I'm going to kill him?"

Elle was afraid of more than that. She was afraid that he had only said all of those other things because he wanted her to give him Rebel, but she put that aside for the moment. "I know you're not going to, because you'll never find him."

"Do you really think that this is a good time to be keeping secrets?"

"Yep," Elle said slowly. "If the only way we can fix this is by me betraying Rebel..." She shook her head. "Then we aren't going to be able to fix this." It was terrifying to say those words to him. "So why don't you tell me about the secrets you've been keeping?" She felt that it was important to remind him that he had been keeping things from her too, even though she knew that her secrets were much worse than his.

The energy between them was strange. He had just basically told her that he loved her, but he seemed very imposing and threatening right then. "Well, I should at least tell you what Bennet said."

Elle let out a breath she did not even know she was holding. Even though he had not actually said it yet, she hoped that meant that her selling out Rebel was not the only way they could make this work. "That seems like a good place to start."

He nodded with a tight smile and sent the laundry basket sliding into the bedroom. Then he went to sit on the couch, rearranging the cushions he had tossed around to show her his ability. Elle followed him warily. When she was seated, Sylar spoke. "So obviously you know who that guy was. He's the head of Building 26, and I've been working with him to better understand the enemy. Which I think is what he's been doing too. It doesn't matter; we're using each other. But apparently, he recognized you because he called Bennet to tell him you're alive."

"Oh." Elle could see why that might lead Bennet to call, but he must have said more than just that. "What does that have to do with killing you?"

"Danko wants him to take you down." Sylar thought about that. "I guess he didn't believe me when I said you were off limits. Actually, we're lucky he called Bennet, but if he wants you in the basement..."

Elle could only imagine that the rest of the sentence was that she was not safe anymore. He had not really answered her question though. "But what does that have to do with killing you? It might surprised you to know this, but Bennet doesn't actually end every conversation like that." Although, she conceded to herself, he probably wanted to.

"He wants you to hurry things along. I guess he thinks that with Danko being involved, time is running out. Or he wants you to think that because he's wanted me dead for years."

Elle had a lot of angles that she needed to play here. While Sylar only really had to deal with this Danko character, Elle needed to handle Rebel, Bennet, and Sylar, all of whom wanted slightly different things. "Okay, so here are the facts. Bennet knows you're alive, which is not my fault because I didn't know you were supposed to be dead. He also knows that we're living in Donner's apartment because I kind of had a meltdown this afternoon. Danko knows that I'm alive. Danko and Bennet are working at cross purposes. Danko wants to hunt down people like us; Bennet wants to help us." She knew that she was giving a slanted view, but if Bennet was not the bad guy here, then neither was Rebel. "I think that, given the situation, we should tell Bennet more about what you and Danko are doing. I mean you said you were using him to understand the enemy, so I think you're still on board with our general plan to take down the agency."

Sylar shrugged. "Actually, I don't really care what happens to the rest of them. I'm safe. I have access to abilities, things are going pretty well for me. And while Bennet is trying to kill me, Danko has helped me."

Elle supposed this was the real moment of truth. "Well, while Bennet helped to bring me back to life, Danko wants me drugged up in the basement of Building 26. So there's that. He might be handing you people with abilities, which none of us are really going to do, but he's trying to take me away from you, probably because he doesn't like that you have a connection to someone else. You killed his agents over me. He probably wants me out of the picture. I used to do this for a living, and, uh... Well, if it was me, I'd lie to the target's face, like agreeing that someone is off limits, and then I'd get rid of that person behind his back. And so, I think you need to make a choice there."

Sylar smiled a little incredulously. "Are you asking me to choose between you and the abilities? You, the one who coaxed me into killing in the first place."

Elle rolled her eyes. "That's an exaggeration. And no, there will always be abilities; I can't really stop you from getting them. I'm asking you to choose between me and Danko. And again, the choice is completely up to you. It's just that based on what you told me before, I got the impression that you don't want me to go, and I thought that would include being locked up in Building 26." She stood up, to make it clear that she was ready to leave if he decided that what he was doing with Danko was more important to him than keeping her around. Considering what he was saying now, she really expected him to do just that. She had always been somewhat skeptical anyway. "Please correct me if I'm wrong."

He took her wrist and pulled back down on the couch. "The abilities were one thing, but between you and Danko? I definitely choose you." He leaned in really close like he was going to kiss her, but instead he said, "So what exactly do you want to tell Bennet?"

–


	22. Chapter 22

–

**Chapter 22**

Sylar was a little frustrated with Elle because it really seemed that she was using him. The choice she was asking him to make was not between her and Danko. She was telling him that the only way they could stay together was if he helped men who wanted to kill him, and more than that, men who wanted _her_ to kill him. He decided that he might as well see exactly what she wanted him to do, so he asked about what she wanted to tell Bennet.

Elle's eyes lit up. "So you're going to do it? You'll work with Bennet?"

Sylar sighed. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm going to help _you_, Elle. I just don't understand why you want to protect him."

Elle put her elbow on the back of the couch and ran her hand through her hair. "What you seem to be forgetting is that Bennet is not the bad guy here. The first time you met him, you had just tried to murder his daughter. That girl is his entire life. And that's only the beginning. Just look at everything else you've done to him."

This was not the conversation that Sylar really wanted to have, but he could not help but be a little incredulous. "What I've done to him? What about what he did to me?"

Elle shook her head. "He didn't do anything to you. You kill people, Gabriel, and you would be doing that no matter what we did. So, yeah, we stopped you from committing suicide; that's about it."

She was wrong about that, and he knew that she understood that she had done so much more. She had accepted the blame for it in the past. "No, I was trying to be better."

She rolled her eyes at that. "For how long? You were trying to be better when we met again at Pinehearst too."

Sylar did not like how incredibly good a point that was. He supposed that most, if not all, of those times when she accepted the blame were prior to him killing her. "That was later, when I had already given into the hunger so many times that..." He did not see why he should have to explain himself to her. Obviously, they had wronged him, and everyone involved knew that. He moved on to the conversation he really wanted to have. "This is my problem. The Company's gone, but you're a still a Company girl. You're putting Bennet and Rebel ahead of me. So I'll chose you ahead of Danko, if you chose me ahead of Bennet."

Elle sighed and threw her head back. "That's not the same."

"You're right; it's not the same. Because Danko doesn't want to kill you."

"Actually, he probably does, but that's not even..." She clenched her hands into fists in frustration. "It's not the same because you met him like three days ago, and I've known Bennet my entire life. Plus, I don't want to kill Danko, but you want to kill Bennet. And--" She made a scoffing sound. "--look at the way he talked about... the guys I got killed. Bennet was a lot more... Well, he was..." She shook her head. "I can't let you kill them."

Sylar wanted to point out that actually, she could not really stop him from killing Bennet, but that was not the point. The point was what _she_ was willing to do for him, which so far was not much. "You don't even like Bennet, and some of that stuff I did to his family, you helped with."

Elle thought about that for a moment. "Well, I like Rebel. And I don't want... Okay, Gabriel, you said that you loved me tonight, but then--"

Of course she was going to bring that up now. It seemed like she was exploiting his feelings to get what she wanted, to protect Rebel and Bennet. He did not let her finish. "I'm pretty sure that's not what I said."

She stared at him for a moment, and then she laughed. She got to her feet. "Right. I don't really know what you said tonight."

Sylar decided that if she tried to leave again, this time he would finally let her. Now that he had told her, quite unequivocally, that he wanted her to stay, if she left now, it would feel like an ultimatum. "Well, here's what you said tonight. You said that you didn't expect to feel anything for me, but then again you didn't expect to feel anything at all. And you said that since you can't kill me, there's no reason to stay. You also said previously, after we slept together, that this was just an assignment to you, nothing more. So I'd just like to know what you're thinking right now."

"Oh." Elle sat down again. She was quiet for several seconds. "I need to think about how I want to say this."

He was not sure how he felt about her needing to think about it. "So that you can lie to me?"

"I'm sorry, can you just tell me what exactly you think is going on here? Because the funny thing about our dynamic is that you can lie whenever you want. So if you say that you want to be in a relationship with me, if that's what you said, it could be a lie. You could be using me to get to Rebel. But I'm not really sure what you think I'm doing."

Sylar could kind of see what she meant by that. He found it interesting that she thought _he_ was using _her_, but he was not going to give up any more of himself by assuring her that was not the case until he heard something reciprocal to what he had told her that night. "Why don't you just tell me how you feel about me, and then we'll talk about that."

She sighed, apparently resigned to the knowledge that she was going to have to tell him what he wanted to know before she was going to get any answers. "I like you, Gabriel. I like you a lot. And I don't want to kill you, because you have this way of touching me and taking all the pain away. And even when you aren't doing that, you just... you take it." She waved her hands like she was directing electricity at him. "And take it, and no one has ever done anything like that for me before. But then after you killed me, I didn't care anymore because I was dead inside. But then I was in pain again, and you did it again, with the touching, and the taking, and... And I couldn't even be mad at you for what you did because I needed you." She made a sweeping motion to indicate that she was done. "And so, that's how I feel. But if you're just doing this to get at those guys, then I can't be a part of that. So, your turn."

Sylar liked what she said, but he was not sure if it was enough. She needed him when she was in pain, but what about now when she was starting to heal? "Elle, I already told you how I feel."

She nodded eagerly. "So just tell me again. Because I definitely heard love in there."

Forced to be so direct, Sylar thought about what he was going to say. Before the thoughts were completely formed, there was a knock on the door. Sylar could not imagine who it could be other than Danko. "Hold that thought for just a second." He got up from the couch to answer it, checking through the peephole, but there was no one there. He turned around and told Elle that.

She got to her feet as well. "What?" she said, sounding slightly more concerned than the situation warranted.

He opened the door without even bothering to change back into Donner. "There's no one out there."

"No, don't--" She sighed and looked around a little panicked. "We have to get out of here." She started for the bedroom, muttering something about getting shoes, but then she turned back. "Never mind; forget the shoes. Let's just go."

Her apprehension was starting to rub off on Sylar. "Elle, is there an invisible person in here?"

She ushered him out the door, staying very aware of their surroundings. "How could I possibly know?" She made a bit of a lunge for her phone on the counter. "Everything is fine," she said to the empty room. "And I am going to call him back. It just wasn't a good time. Calm down." And then she was out the door too.

Before she closed the door, Sylar managed to get the keys to the car into his hand. Elle ran down the stairs ahead of him, and he was little confused why she was so afraid of this invisible person. In the parking lot, he directed her to Donner's car, which he had only started using after he moved her. She jumped into the passenger's seat, and waved for him to hurry. "Go, drive."

Once they were on the road, he turned to her. "What just happened?"

Elle took a couple deep breaths, and then she began to speak very quickly. "Okay, maybe there was no one in the apartment just now, but, yes, there is an invisible man who is a part of the underground. I guess after I didn't answer the phone, Rebel got nervous. And I hung up on Bennet, and... I'm sure that he just wanted to find some way to make sure that everything was okay. Mostly we had to get out of there so that... no one involved in the underground would find out how much you knew. Because to answer your question about what we're going to tell Bennet, not that you know anything. Just that I found out about Danko and how he's been working with you. And that I think we should continue using you and that it's too soon for Phase Two."

Sylar could tell that there was more to the story, but he decided not to push her on that. "So who else works for Rebel?"

Elle smiled and made a nervous "Huh" sound. "Well, there are the people you already know about. And then I know the Haitian's involved, and we have a technopath, but I don't know who it is. That's all I know. We're like cells, and we're kept separate from each other to protect... the other cells. So I think only Rebel knows everyone for sure."

Sylar was driving aimlessly, and he wanted to have some idea of how long this would take. "And when it be safe to go home again?"

"Um." Elle thought about that. "After I talk to Bennet and the person who may or may not be in the apartment right now." She paused. "Once I convince Rebel that you're more valuable to us alive."

This was exactly what Sylar had been afraid of before, that she was just using him to help the cause, and yet somehow she made it sound better than it had in his head. He supposed that her main stated goal was keeping him alive, which was an excellent goal. Being killed was not something that he really worried about anymore, but Elle trying to prevent his death was much better than her trying to bring it about. "I think that first you have to convince me to help them."

Elle shrugged like she did not think it was going to be that difficult.

--

--

**Author's Note:** They will finish that conversation about whether or not he really loves her. Promise.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Now that they were in the car, driving, Elle started to relax. Sylar and Rebel were nowhere near each other, and Sylar did not suspect that the invisible man was Rebel, at least not as far as Elle could tell. Now all she had to do was convince Sylar to help and convince the others that his help was worth keeping him alive. And then everyone would be happy. She sighed. "Okay, here's what I'm thinking. All you really have to do is discredit Danko somehow and convince Nathan that this whole thing was a mistake. If Nathan pulls out support, the President will probably shut down the program." She needed a way to tie that to his self-interest. "And then we'll be free."

Sylar shook his head. "Nathan's already gone. Danko pushed him out a window about a week ago. No one knows where he is. And that hasn't had any effect on the operation of Building 26."

That was all news to Elle. "Hmm, well, maybe you should just kill Danko, if he's the only—" She saw the flaw in that plan immediately. "No, that won't work. People would know, the agents would know, the President would. And that is not the kind of P.R. we need right now.. It'll just make them more determined to lock us all up in that basement, maybe even to kill us. Those of us who can be killed. You'd have to discredit him first. So we're back to that."

After a beat, he said, "You still haven't given me any reason to want to do this."

"Freedom," Elle said slowly. It sounded really weak to her ears.

"Yeah, but, Elle, we're already free. Everyone thinks we're dead, so that's not really working for me."

"Not everyone. Danko knows that both of us are alive, and he's not just going to let that go. So..." He had already shot down anything else she could think of by telling her that he did not care what happened to the rest of them. She was not sure if he had really even said that he cared about what happened to her. He had only kind of implied it. The only thing she could think of was that he might do it for her. Maybe if she insisted that it needed to be done. If he really wanted to stay with her and she really wanted to stay and take down the government, maybe that would do it. Of course, first she would have to know if he really cared about her and really wanted to stay with her. She realized that conversation had been cut short. "I really need to know what you were going to say in the apartment before he showed up—maybe showed up."

Sylar stubbornly kept his eyes facing forward, looking at the traffic ahead of him like it was some big quagmire. "Don't you think we should deal with this Rebel problem before we get into that?"

Rebel was not a problem, and Elle did not like Sylar thinking of him like that. "No. I need to know exactly what is going on between us because that makes a difference in how I handle this."

She was looking right at his face, but he still avoided her eyes. "I really don't see how it changes anything . Unless you're trying to exploit whatever this is to get what you want."

Elle was starting to get a clearer picture of what it was he thought she was doing here. Some of the things he said back at the apartment were starting to make more sense. "Okay, this is my problem with you, Gabriel. You don't know what it's like to be connected to someone. All you think about is what people have done to you or what they can do for you. You don't really think about the other person at all."

That got him to look at her. "I don't think about the other person? What have I been doing if not thinking about you? I have been taking care of you this entire time, even when you were being a pain in the--" He stopped himself and shook his head.

He had completely misconstrued what she was saying. She thought that she had signaled that she was changing subjects a little, but maybe she skipped a step somewhere. "That's not what I'm talking about. You been great with me. I mean outside of that, I just don't think that you understand what it means to owe someone your life."

"Are you saying that I should do this for you because I owe you for saving my life?"

He was not listening to her. "Outside of that. Although, actually, yeah, maybe you do kind of owe me. But I meant that I owe Rebel and Bennet for saving _my_ life. And I just meant that I don't think you get that I have obligations to other people than just you. You think everything is like your arrangement with Danko, just quid pro quo. But that's not what I have with these guys. I have known Rebel and Bennet, and the Haitian, for more than fifteen years. I had a working relationship with them—most of them." She realized that she never actually worked with Rebel until now. "But you don't form attachments to people. You killed me, and you dumped Luke off in New Jersey. And I need you to understand that that's not how I live. I want to follow this through. I want to help Rebel."

The sun was setting, and Sylar's face was cast in a soft light. He looked very thoughtful, and it seemed that what she was saying had some effect. "And why do you need to know how I feel about you to do that?"

That was probably a good question. "Actually, I don't," she said simply. "Not for that. But I do need to know so I can prioritize between what I want and what people are offering me. So if you're really asking me to choose between you and Bennet, what is it that you're asking me to choose here?"

He did not say anything for a while. He went back to looking at the deadlocked traffic, but this time it did not seem like he was avoiding her. He just needed to think about that. "I'm not just trying to dodge the question, but I only said that after you asked me to choose between you and Danko. So what exactly were you offering?"

Elle smiled in spite of herself. She wondered if he realized that he had just made her point about him only caring about what people can do for him. She thought about how she would want him to answer that question. Maybe at the very least, if she said it, he would reciprocate. "Well, as I've already said, plainly and clearly, I actually really like you, really like being with you. That's all I... I think I'm willing to offer you everything you might want from me, but I don't really know what that is because you haven't told me." She took a deep breath. "And the thing is if it's not much of anything, then it's probably better for me to stick with Rebel. So it would just help me to know if this is something worth pursuing or if I should just cut my losses."

He considered this. "What about Rebel? You said you liked him too. What does he offer you?"

It seemed that he was incapable of answering a simple question, and Elle felt that she had said more than enough to let Sylar know how she felt about him. She did not think that she had given him any reason to think that there was anything going on between her and Rebel that he really needed to worry about. He could say that he was not avoiding answering the question, but it seemed to Elle that he definitely was. "Okay, now Rebel I have actually known my entire life, much longer than Bennet." She had to think about what Rebel was really offering. She already had her life back, and while in the beginning it seemed that they had no qualms about killing her because she was supposed to be dead, she no longer thought that Rebel or Bennet would kill her just for walking away from the mission. "I guess what he's offering me is a place in the world, a purpose. There's really only one thing I know how to do, and that is be an agent. And when this government program is gone, there will be another Company, I guarantee it. Rebel might not be involved with that, but Bennet and other people definitely will. And that is where I belong, unless someone is going to tell me that I might belong somewhere else too."

"But you just said--"

"Oh my god!" Elle rubbed her face with her hands. She was getting really frustrated with him. "I just said a lot of things, and you haven't said much of anything in quite a while, so I'm done. It's time for you to talk."

He did not say anything for another long while, and that did not even surprise Elle. She was determined to wait him out. She was not going to volunteer anymore, and if he asked another question, she was not going to answer it. She going to force him to tell her what he felt.

For Sylar's part, he did not know what to say. Whatever he said before was in the heat of the moment. He probably had told her that he loved her, but that was just to stop her from leaving and to let her know that they could get past this assignment of hers. She was correct in thinking that she had said enough. He knew that it was time for him to say something back, but what? If he said that he loved her now, that would just make it real. He tried to calculate how long they had been together this time. It was barely more than a week. Plus half a day in California, plus that week in New York. That did not add up to very much time, especially when he accounted for all the murders and lies. "Okay, I'll tell you what I feel. It's something I haven't felt for anyone else since I first met you. It's something I don't expect I will ever feel for anyone else. It's something I was trying to get rid of when I killed you because I can't be both Sylar and Gabriel. It's not love, although, I've never been in love, so how would I know? It's the precursor to love, whatever comes first. It will be love, and I guess that's what I was saying before. You don't get to choose who you fall in love with, and you're it for me. It just scares me to think that I could lose myself in you because I don't want to lose myself. I don't form attachments to people on purpose. I don't want to be attached to people because it never works out how I want." The traffic was not moving, and they both knew it. He turned in his seat to look her in the eye. "You're like a drug for me, Elle. And I tried to get rid of you, but you just came back stronger. And now I need you, and that scares me. And _nothing_ scares me."

He was sure that was not what she wanted to hear, but he had to be honest with her. He did not even know what it all meant when put together; he just wanted to leave that for her to figure out. She blew out her breath. "I think you're right. I think there is a very good chance this is not going to work out. But I also think that, if you're really falling in love with me, and if you really need me... I think it's worth it. I'm falling in love with you too, and I need you too. I think this middle part is going to be worth whatever spectacularly bad ending we have. What happened at Pinehearst and that day together in Costa Verde, that was almost worth dying for. And you said that making love to me that day was one of the best things that happened to you in a long time. So I think it's going to be worth it. That's just my opinion."

The car in front of Sylar moved, and he had to look back at the road, but he really liked Elle's opinion. "I'll do it."

"Do what?" she asked.

Sylar hesitated for a second before he nodded, his decision final. "I'll help you follow through on your obligations. I'll help Rebel."


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's Note: **I feel the need to point out that I've only been to Washington, D.C. once, eight years ago, so I don't really know much about how that city is set up, alley-wise. (So if you're thinking, "That doesn't sound like Washington," you're probably right.)

–

--

**Chapter 24:**

Elle had determined somewhere during that car ride that her best case scenario was that Sylar would stay in Washington and she would be able to be with him while helping Rebel in some different capacity. She thought it had become clear that Sylar was not going to do anything he did not want to do just to make her happy. And maybe that was not even what he was doing now, but he had agreed to help, and that was a start. She pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Okay, I'll call Bennet now."

Sylar put his hand over hers to stop her. "I still don't really know what you're going to say to him."

She wanted to ask if he trusted her, but she could guess what his answer would be. "We can't put this off much longer. He's going to wonder why it's taking so long, and I don't want them to know that you know about the plan, or especially that you know about Bennet." Elle was aware that if Rebel and Bennet found out Sylar knew about Bennet and the murder plot, they would insist that there was no going back. They would insist on killing Sylar.

Sylar pressed his lips together in a smile, telling her that he had thought this through more than she had. "If you call him from the car, he's probably going to figure it out, since your invisible friend knows we left together. Besides, we don't have a plan; you have nothing to tell him."

Elle was pretty sure they did have a plan. Discredit Danko, get Nathan back, have him talk the President into shutting down the program. She supposed that the vaguest part of that was discrediting Danko. "All right, here's the plan. You plant seeds of doubt in Danko's mind about his own men. At the same time, Bennet will be telling him things too, and our technopath can mess with some of the records just enough to provide outside confirmation of what you're both telling him. And then you can use that wonderful shapeshifting to make him look even more crazy."

He nodded. "Okay, but that sounds like it would take a lot of coordination between me and Bennet. And if I'm not supposed to know about him, how is that supposed to work?"

Elle was not a details kind of person. "I'll ask Bennet, and he'll come up with something. So I'll tell Bennet that you're in with Danko, and you've got this great plan, and I think we should give you a chance to implement it. I'll tell him your side, Bennet will work out his side, and he'll tell the technopath what to do." The more she thought about it, Elle really liked this plan. It sounded very solid to her. "All right, so pull over and I'll call him. Once he's on board, Rebel will be easy."

Sylar gestured at the traffic ahead of him as if to ask where he should pull over. He signaled that he wanted to get in the right lane, and then he proceeded to force his way into that lane. "Actually before I go back to work with Noah Bennet knowing who I am, there's something I want to try." He pulled off into an alley, parked, and opened the glove compartment.

He pulled out a switchblade, opening it in a way that made Elle jump. She knew that he was falling in love with her and all of that, but sometimes it was difficult to forget that he had killed her not that long ago. She could not imagine what it was he wanted to try with a knife like that or what it had to do with Bennet. When she thought about it, he had not actually agreed to work with Bennet. "What's that for?"

He twirled the knife between his fingers. "I think that, as a shapeshifter, I can rearrange things internally as well. And I think I can move the spot in my brain that I need free in order to heal. But I can't really test this theory unless I have someone to pull out the knife if I'm wrong. I can't really trust Danko with that, and I want him to think he knows my weaknesses anyway." He held the knife out to her, handle first. "So, actually, I don't mind if you try to kill me."

Elle looked at the knife warily and did not take it. "This is test, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but all you have to do to pass is pull the knife out if I can't." He withdrew the knife so that he was no longer offering it to her. "In fact, that's all you have to do."

Sylar leaned forward with his forehead resting against the steering wheel and positioned the knife at the back of his head. With one deep breath, he drove it into his skull. To her disgust, Elle actually found this act somewhat arousing. It was not the mere act so much as the fact that he had the courage and determination to ram a knife into himself like that. His arms went slack, and Elle waited, hoping he would snap out of it on his own.

Sylar only lost consciousness for a few seconds. When he came to again, he could feel the knife still sticking out of the back of his head. He had actually done it, moved the spot, which was amazing because that meant he was even more invincible. He still had that weakness, but now no one knew where it was. He could have reached up and removed the knife himself, but he wanted to make sure that Elle intended to save him. He held his breath, which caused his lungs to burn, but when he felt her hand on the handle, jerking the blade out of his head, he knew that discomfort was worth the knowledge that he could trust her with his life.

Sylar sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Elle held the knife out in front of her and wrinkled her nose at the blood on it. "Good thing you didn't try that alone. So what does this mean?"

Sylar decided not to tell her that it worked, not for the reasons he would not tell Danko, but simply because he did not want her to know that he had tested her like that. She would probably find that insulting. He just shrugged. "It means I have to be more careful around Bennet. You can call him now."

Elle handed him back the knife and noticed that some of his blood had dripped onto her hand. She wiped it off on his shirt sleeve and picked up her phone from her lap. Bennet answered on the first ring. Before speaking she reminded herself to be very careful with what she said about Rebel. "You know you can't just call me whenever you want either. Sylar walked in, and I couldn't exactly talk about killing him while he was in the room. You didn't have to send someone to check up on me."

"I didn't send him to check up on you. He went on his own. We just don't know what's going on with you. You said you're sleeping with him now, so I just need to know that you still have your priorities straight."

Elle tried to remember when she would have told Bennet or possibly Rebel that she was sleeping with Sylar. It might have been when she was really freaked out about Agent Steve Donner and the fact that she slept with Sylar without really knowing it was him. Although in hindsight, she had really known it was him. She remembered however, that she had specifically tried not to mention anything about sex during that conversation. So she was pretty sure that she had not told him about that, which meant that Sylar told him. She looked at Sylar. "Right. My priorities are fine, Noah. But I've been thinking a lot since we last spoke. I don't know if killing him is the best idea."

He sighed heavily. "Elle--"

She interrupted him. "Just listen, okay? Danko knows I'm alive because he came to the apartment tonight. He's working with Sylar. He gave Sylar the shapeshifter, and Donner too, I guess. And Sylar has a plan to take down Building 26 from the inside, using this partnership with Danko. I think we should give him a chance to do that."

"No," Bennet said firmly. "We never really wanted his help, Elle. We just told you that to get around the lie detector. It's too dangerous to have him this close. You were send there to kill him, and that's what you need to do now."

This was the tricky part, and Elle wished she did not have to say this with Sylar sitting right next to her. She just told herself that he would understand. "That's fine. I can kill him whenever I want. But you and Rebel chose me specifically for this mission because of my connection to Sylar. You brought me back from the dead because you knew that I was the only one who could handle him. And let me tell you, Noah, I have him completely under control. Right now, he is willing to do anything I ask because he doesn't want to lose me again. When he found out that Danko recognized me—don't worry; I left your name out of it—but when he found out, he was so apologetic for letting the man anywhere near me, and he's told me things I never dreamed he would say. Like that he's falling in love with me and he needs me in his life. I think you need to put aside your pettiness and think about what's best for the cause, what's best for Claire. We should be using this power I have over him."

Elle mouthed "sorry" at Sylar, just to make sure that he knew she was only saying that to get Bennet on her side. Most of what she said was not technically a lie, so she felt the need to tread carefully with that.

Bennet took a moment to answer. "So he's falling for you, and you think that helps your case? Because it just makes me wonder more about your motives for wanting to keep him alive. Not only are you having sex, but now you're in love."

Here they went again. "No, you're not listening to me, Noah. _He's_ in love. I'm never going to have feelings for him, not after what he's done to me. And I'm not trying to keep him alive. I am going to kill him. I'll clean up our mess. Nothing has changed, except that I think I can get more from him. I mean, god, doesn't just the fact that I slept with him a few days after I was raped prove my dedication to you all? What more do you want from me?"

There was another long pause from Bennet, and then finally, he said. "Fine. What's his plan?"

Elle was glad that part was over. "Okay, I don't know all the details, but here's what he's told me." She explained her plan to Bennet much the same way she did to Sylar. "So I'm thinking that if you were also telling Danko these things, that would help. The more independent sources, the better. So I can get you the names, and you can help with this."

"Well, that might--"

She wanted it all laid out before Bennet had time to poke holes. "That's only the beginning. The key is finding Nathan. You can do that, right?" She felt that Bennet was definitely the right man to put on that. "Because what we really need to make this plan work is Nathan ready to step in right as Danko's star is falling."

"Look, I'll run this by Rebel," said Bennet. "But if he says no, that is the final word on it."

Elle knew that Rebel was not going to say no. This whole Sylar thing was Bennet's pet project. She smiled. "No, I'll call Rebel. I needed to talk to him anyway. And, uh, when he says yes, you'll get the names of the agents we're using from him, as soon as I get them from Sylar. Goodbye, Noah." She flipped the phone shut. The hard part was over.

She turned to look at Sylar. "You know that I--"

He waved her explanation away. "I know."

Elle sighed with relief. "Okay, one more phone call, and we can go back." She was about to dial the number when she stopped. "Why did you tell Bennet that we're sleeping together?"

Sylar shrugged. "He asked."

It still struck Elle as odd. "Well, here's a tip for being a better me. I wouldn't have answered that question." She worried that she might be giving him the impression that she was okay with him impersonating her. "Not that I want to encourage you to do that again, " she added. "Just if you have to, do it right."

He raised his eyebrows like he was amused by this. "Call Rebel."

"Yeah." Elle hit the call button on her phone. She really wished that she could talk to Rebel in private, to let him know that Sylar did not know the invisible person was him, but she was sure that Sylar would not like it if she tried to shield this conversation from him, especially after the things she said to Bennet. Rebel also answered quickly. "Okay, I know that it's taken me a long time to call you back, but after I hung up with Bennet, Sylar got to talking about his plans to help you, and--"

"It doesn't matter what his plans are," Rebel said. "It's time to kill him."

Elle shook her head, even though she knew he could not see her. "No, see, I don't think it is. You and Bennet have no patience. I know that getting his help was never really part of the plan, but he's still very smart and very powerful. Now, I can't talk for long because he just stepped out for a moment. But Sylar has a pretty good plan, and Bennet's already signed off on it because he knows I'm right. So we need to be able to go back to the apartment, so that I can get some privacy to tell you about this plan in full."

"Then come home, and we'll talk about it."

Elle should have seen that coming. "Sylar's not going to back to the apartment until I assure him that there aren't any invisible people there. And he'll know if I'm lying."

"I don't understand why you told him in the first place."

"I don't understand why you showed up at the--" Elle realized her mistake, but it was too late to go back now. "--apartment in the first place. Do you understand that I have been playing this perfectly, right up to making a sexual assault work to my advantage. I know what I'm doing, and I need you to get out of the apartment because if we give him a little more time, he is going to bring down all of Building 26 for us."

He sighed. "What makes you think you can trust him?"

That was a difficult question to answer. "Because I'm here. I've been with him this whole time, and I know how to read him. This is a good plan. I have to go now, but call Bennet and he'll fill you in. And get out of the apartment." She hung up without waiting for a response.

Sylar started the car again. "You know, you were doing really well with that Rebel thing. I had no idea he was the invisible man."

That was very little consolation since she blew it. She really did not see how she could have done that differently though. She needed to tell him to get out of the apartment. "I don't suppose you have a thermal imaging device in here. Because I'm not really sure if he's going to leave."

Sylar did a three-point turn to head out of the alley the same way he came in. "Don't worry about it. When we get close to the apartment, you can call him again and ask. Let me hear the answer, and I'll let you know if he's lying."

"Wow," Elle said. She was a little impressed by him, even though she already knew he had that ability. "You're handy to have around."

"Oh, you have no idea," Sylar said with a smile. Luckily, traffic had started to thin a little, and he easily pulled onto the main road again. "Let's go home."

Something occurred to Elle. Before they moved into the apartment, she asked if they were living together now. She was aware that he had never answered that; all he said was that it was not charity. But now, hearing him call the apartment home, she had an answer. "So we really are living together. Like _together._"

Sylar hesitated and gave a slightly nervous laugh. "Yeah, I guess we are."


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note:** I kind of took last week off unexpectedly. Sorry about that. (Also, watching NCIS, I always loved the name of Anacostia. And now that I'm writing something that takes place in Washington, I had to use it.)

–

–

**Chapter 25:**

Noah Bennet had spent most of his night on the phone between Elle and Rebel, trying to work out exactly what was going to happen. Bennet did not trust Elle. She had gone from frantic and unsure, possibly even crying, to insisting that she was completely in control of the situation in just a few short hours. That change did not just come out of nowhere, and Bennet really had trouble believing that it came from Sylar saying that he was falling for her. The only thing that he had really learned from Elle that night was that she was fully back to being herself.

Still, he and Rebel were going to give this plan a chance, because taking down Building 26 was the priority. The one thing he knew Elle was right about was doing what was best for Claire. Sylar was not really a threat to his daughter anymore, at least not an immediate one. It was just going to be difficult for Bennet to work along side Donner, knowing who he really was. He did not even know what precautions he could possibly take to protect himself from this sworn enemy of his. He just had to rely on Elle's word that Sylar had been tamed by his love for her, which was difficult since he wanted to roll his eyes every time he even thought about it.

Sylar needed another day to pick the right person, the right circumstances. He wanted to be cautious, according to Elle, make sure that everything was going to line up correctly. That made sense, but it could also mean that he was stalling, that he planned to do something else, whether Elle knew it or not. In the meantime, Bennet needed to deal with this "Elle Bishop is alive" situation. He could not ignore it, or Danko might take the information to someone else. He brought his own personal file on Elle to work that day.

Bennet went into Danko's office and set the file down on the desk without a word of explanation. "Where exactly did you see Elle Bishop?"

Danko glanced at the file with little interest. "She was down in the Southeast part of the city. Near Anacostia."

Having given Rebel the address the night before, Bennet knew that Donner lived in Anacostia. Of course, Bennet also knew the circumstances of how Danko saw Elle, but he still had to go through this whole song and dance. "She has been presumed dead for months. I saw the body. And now you're trying to tell me, after all that, she's alive, and that's all you're telling me. What makes you so sure it was her?"

Danko raised his eyebrows at Bennet. "What makes you so sure she's dead? Wasn't the body you found burned so that it couldn't be identified without dental records? Because it seems to me that dental records are a lot easier to fake than visual identification. I saw Bishop go electric. We had a chat. It's her. Can I trust you to handle this or not?"

Bennet had been hoping that the other man might think Elle had never died in the first place. "Well, now that you bring that up, there's an interesting aspect to this theory that Elle faked her death. Because that means that Sylar never set her on fire, which means they were in on that together."

Danko shrugged. "What's your point?"

"About a week ago, Sylar killed two agents in Kansas. At the time, you mentioned that he was traveling with an unidentified blond woman." Bennet opened Elle's file and pulled out the picture of Wolski that Danko left on his desk that morning. He slid it across the desk for Danko to see now. "And I remember thinking this did not strike me as Sylar's M.O., even if he did catch Wolski screwing his girlfriend. On the other hand, this looks exactly like Elle Bishop's M.O."

Danko pulled the rest of the file over to him and started to flip through it. "Well, there you go. We already know Sylar was in Washington."

Bennet nodded. "That's right; we do know that. Because you managed to kill him with no back-up, and now you're having chats with his girlfriend."

"I'm not sure what you're accusing me of, Noah, but you should think very carefully before you go any further." Danko did not look up from the page he was reading when he said this, effectively conveying that he was not worried about whatever this veiled accusation might be.

"I'm not accusing you of anything," Bennet said. He took Elle's file out of his superior's hands. "So Anacostia. That's all you're giving me to go on? I guess I'll just drive around the area and hope I run into her like you did." He did not need to hear Danko's response to this, so he just walked out without waiting for one. His real goal for that day was to track down Nathan Petrelli, and he was just glad he had an excuse to get away from the office to do that.

On his way out of the building, Bennet passed Donner. He did not stop or acknowledge the man at all, but seeing him did reinforce in Bennet's mind that one, Sylar definitely needed to die, and two, Elle was probably not going to do it. That was a problem for another day though, just hopefully one in the not too distant future.

–

Elle knew that she was not really safe alone in the apartment anymore. It was kind of sad because she was starting to feel better about being alone, and then Danko had to go and ruin it. But there was nothing she could do about that now. So Rebel and Sylar had agreed, through Elle, that Rebel should take her out of the apartment during the day. Elle choose not to see this as babysitting, but as protective detail because she was so valuable to both of them. At least that was how she tried to think of it.

By design, there was a brief temporal gap between Sylar leaving and Claude showing up. Elle was not really expecting anything to happen that morning, since it was apparently being left to Bennet to handle her. So she was surprised when there was a pounding on her door. Checking the peephole to find no one visibly there, she opened the door for Claude. He grabbed her arm and dragged her farther into the apartment. At first, she thought he had become visible when he touched her, but as soon as he held his finger up to his lips, she realized that she had actually become invisible.

With no idea what was going on, Elle waited for the other shoe to drop. It took at least a minute, but finally, the door was kicked in, which was unnecessary because neither them had locked it behind Claude. The fact that it was unnecessary really played up the frightening aspect of this event. Then Elle noted that the agent coming into the apartment was not holding a gun that shot electrical charges. It was a real rifle; he was there to kill her. If Claude had shown up a few minutes later...

Elle's breath caught in her throat as the agent's eyes scanned over them. She was not as confident in her invisibility as she should have been, being so new to it, but it must have worked because the agent just kept scanning. Claude pointed to his own hand and whispered in her ear, "Shoot the gun out of his hand."

Half understanding what he wanted, Elle took a moment to steady herself and shot a bolt of electricity at the agent's hand. She would have preferred to kill the man immediately, but it did not seem like the right time to question orders. As soon as the gun dropped from his hands, Claude let go of her arm, making it so that she could not see him and the agent could see her.

The agent was clearly thrown off by her sudden appearance. "How did you do that?"

Elle shrugged while arming both of her hands with electricity. She fully intended to kill the man at the slightest movement, but before he did anything other than stare, the agent's head snapped back and he went down with a thud. A second later, Claude reappeared holding the rifle up in such a way that it was clear he had hit the other man with the butt of the gun. "Let's find something to tie him up," he said. "And then we'll see if he might be useful."

–

Moments after getting a sideways glance from Bennet, which was not at all subtle, Sylar was called into Danko's office. On the desk, there was a picture of the agent Elle killed the night she was raped. At least, it appeared to be him, but the picture did not show his face. Danko looked up at him calmly. "I was hoping we could talk about what happened this night." He tapped the photograph.

Sylar glanced back at the door. "Is that what you and Bennet were just discussing?" He really did not trust Noah Bennet.

"We'll get to that in a moment. First, though, Wolski. The medical reports said these were electrical burns."

Sylar knew where this was going; the mention of electricity made it obvious. Still, he needed to pretend that he did not know Danko had already figured out who Elle was. He gave off a few small sparks with his hand. "Yes, that's just one of my many talents."

"Right, and that's a talent you got from..." He looked down at a sheet in front of him as though he was verifying the details. "Elle Bishop?"

Sylar was not sure how far he should go to protect Elle's identity, considering how futile it was. He smiled. "Yeah, sweet girl. I haven't thought about her in a while."

Danko tipped his head to the side. "See, now that's strange to me because you're living with her."

Sylar was glad that was out in the open, but he was a little concerned about why Danko was letting him know how much he knew. After a brief pause, he sank down into a chair. "I lied about her being a sweet girl too." He nodded at the photo. "You want to know what happened to your agent? He tried to rape her and she killed him. And actually, I'm happy to clear up any misconception that I was in any way involved with his state of undress."

He had thought a lot about what Elle said the night before about Danko wanting to take her away from him in order to make sure that Sylar did not have any allegiances that might interfere with what they were doing there. He needed a way to downplay her importance to him while still making it clear that he wanted to protect her. He just was not sure how to do that if he assumed that Danko knew everything about their history that Bennet knew. He was going to have to put that off a little longer. He had been slouching in the chair, but now he sat up straight. "Is _that_ what you and Bennet were discussing?"

Danko gave a slight nod. "This picture always bothered him. He said it didn't look like something you would do. So he started looking into Elle Bishop's death. Apparently there's some issue with the body, but he did not go into that. He presented me with this theory that you never killed her in the first place, which appears to be the case. And of course Bennet is under the belief that I killed you, and he thinks that's going to make her dangerous."

Danko was playing some kind of game here, and Sylar was not sure what it was. He found interesting this possibility that he never killed her. He knew that Danko believe that because that part of it was not a lie. After just a moment's deliberation, he decided it was better not to correct Danko on that. Her resurrection would only indicate that she was involved with other people that Sylar, which was not a good thing for Danko to know. Sylar smirked. "Everything makes her dangerous. And I never claimed that I killed her. I just said she was dead; Bennet drew his own conclusions." Sylar felt that there was an opening for him to put limits on their relationship, but it would seem awkward to volunteer any information just then. He needed to say something though. "The part about picking her up in Montana was true though. She was looking for some protection while she figured out where to hide. And I was not really all that interested in dragging her around with me. But then she got raped. I don't really have a choice anymore."

Danko crossed his arms. "I heard you and she were pretty close, actually."

"You also heard that I killed her, so..." When he thought about the things Elle said on the phone to Rebel and Bennet the night before, he did not feel guilty about what he was going to say next. "So let me explain our dynamic to you. We hurt each other, and then we help each other, and then we just hurt each other again. She saved my life, and then pushed me to become a killer. I killed her father, and then I helped her fake her death. It's a cycle that works for us. But then..." He pointed at the picture, as though he was trying to remember the agent's name. "Wolski. Then Wolski came along, and he broke my favorite toy. As soon as I can find a way to fix her, she'll stop being off limits, and you can have her." Sylar felt the need to clarify that. "For the basement, not... in any other way."

Danko nodded his head thoughtfully. "Well, I'll see what I can do about Bennet. It's just that after talking to him, I thought you should know. Obviously, he does not have the first idea where to start looking."

That was a lie, which got Sylar thinking about Danko's choice to tell lies at this point. It occurred to him now that maybe Danko never knew that he had the ability to detect lies. After all, why would he or anyone need to know about that one? On the other hand, why would Bennet hold it back. But again, what would Danko have to gain by lying if Sylar could tell. He did not have time to think about that because the phone in his pocket started to buzz. Sylar checked the display and pushed himself up from the chair. "Good, because I want to hand deliver her myself; it'll make the betrayal more sweet. Just when she's ready." He did not know how effective that would be as a stall, but he only needed it to work for a few days, just long enough for them to get rid of Danko. "So if that's all, I have work to do."

Danko gestured vaguely at the door, which was all Sylar needed in order to take his leave. The call had been from Elle's cell phone, and she knew not to call him on Donner's phone unless it was urgent. And, after that little conversation, he knew Danko was up to something, so as soon as he was far enough away from Danko's office, he called her back. "What's going on?"

"Donner?" She sounded a little confused.

Sylar had not even been thinking about that. "Yeah, it's Donner." He paused just long enough for the casual listener to think the next part was responding to something new. "I can't really do anything about that right now."

"No, that's good. Um... We have a situation at the apartment."

The way she said that put Sylar on alert. He had a feeling that she had a pretty good idea of what constituted a situation. He was hoping that all it meant was that someone was dead because as long as it was not her, it did not matter much to him. "What kind of situation?"

"Well, your friend Kent Harper stopped by the apartment. Actually, he busted in with a rifle, and now the door won't close, but that's not important. What is interesting is that it seems like he has more questions than I do, Steve."

Sylar was separating himself more and more from the other agents, but he still was not far enough away that he felt it would be safe to ask about the name, so he let that slide. He was not really sure what she was trying to say. "I don't really understand what's going on there. Can you start from the beginning?"

"Yeah, I'm just going to take this call in private." It sounded like she was addressing someone else, like she had pulled the phone away from her mouth. Then she started talking to him again. "So, he seems to know who I am, but..." There was a long pause and the sound of a door closing. "I'm not so sure he knows who you are. I get the impression he thinks you're really Donner."

Sylar glanced back at the office he had just come from. "That means Danko was probably involved. What exactly happened?"

Elle sighed. "Like I said, he kicked in the door, ready to shoot me. Luckily, Rebel was here, and we were able to get the jump on him. And now he's all tied and not a danger to anyone. Here's what I've gathered. I heard Danko telling you last night that one of the other agents was suspicious of you. It was Harper, right?"

Sylar thought back on that conversation. "Yeah."

"Okay, well, what I've gathered from his questions and the few answers he's given is that Danko told him to come here and that he probably told him that Donner was acting strangely because he's taken up with one of us. I know you were looking for a candidate to spread rumors about, and I think one just fell into our laps. If you can do a Harper impression right now, I have a plan."

Sylar was trying to figure out what Danko was doing. He thought the point was for Bennet to take down Elle, and he did not know how Harper figured into that. He stepped out of the hallway and into the bathroom. After checking to make sure he was alone, he attempted to become Harper, and he was successful. "Yeah, I can do Harper. What's the plan?"

"All right." She sounded excited. "If we time it right, our technopath can make it look like a call from your phone is coming from Harper's. So here's what we're going to do." Elle detailed out her plan for him. It seemed to hinge on a few too many variables, but Sylar agreed that they should not waste this opportunity. He waited for Rebel to sync things up with the technopath, and then he hung up with Elle and dialed Danko.

Danko answered the phone by saying, "I hope you have good news for me."

Sylar took that to mean that the technological trick had worked. "Yeah, she's been taken care of." Once he said this, he immediately hung up the phone. They did not know enough about what Harper knew for Sylar to attempt a real conversation, and Danko would appreciate the conciseness anyway. Still alone in the bathroom, he shifted back into Donner and walked out to continue his workday.

–

–

**Author's Note:** These chapters are really not breaking down the way I expected, so I don't know exactly how many chapters there will be, but I think it's going to be less than thirty. Just to give you an idea where we are in relation to the end.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

Bennet had just hung up with Sandra when he got the call from Rebel to fill him in on the new plan. After an hour on the phone with his wife, he was glad to have something to take his mind off how angry she still was. He called her for the stated purpose of finding out if she had heard any more from Claire. Nathan had taken their daughter away, god knows where, because he thought he could protect her, even though it was his fault she was in danger to begin with. His assignment to track down Nathan gave Bennet the perfect excuse to call Sandra. She wanted time apart, space to think about what their marriage had become, but now he had a reason to call that was not related to their separation. He had not been able to stop himself from asking about it though. It was clear that although she was not ready to talk divorce, she still was unwilling to forgive him for the lies. And she did not know where Claire and Nathan were.

On his way up the stairs to Harper's apartment, Bennet passed the Haitian coming down. Even after his old partner had stopped pretending to be mute, he had never been very talkative. Now, he just nodded at Bennet and continued on his way out of the building. Bennet waited until the Haitian had left before knocking loudly on Harper's door. "Harper, are you in there?"

It took a while, but Harper finally came to the door, looking drowsy and out of it. "What happened? What time is it?"

Bennet regarded him disapprovingly. "It's after eleven, and you never showed up for work. So I wanted to ask _you_ what happened."

Harper raised his hand and gingerly touched the side of his head, wincing. Bennet watched as he tried to remember and got the same look everyone did when he realized that he could not. It was a look Bennet had seen many times. Harper dropped his hand. "I'm not really sure."

Bennet nodded. "Were you drinking?" he asked sternly.

Harper thought about that, still confused. There was no point in waiting for a response, so Bennet sighed and said, "Actually, that's probably better. I thought maybe--"

"You thought what?" He seemed eager to hear whatever it was that Bennet was thinking. Anything had to be better than missing half a day of work because of a drunken blackout.

"No, it's just that—Well, Danko was talking about..." Bennet pushed into the apartment. There were a couple empty beer bottles on the floor next to the couch. That was a nice touch. He turned to face Harper. "I probably shouldn't be saying this to you, but I think Danko is getting reckless. After what happened with James Martin, who's still out there with a completely unknown ability... And he went after Sylar alone. Luckily, that worked out, but... I just think he's taking too many chances."

Harper closed the door and came over to where Bennet was standing. "Okay, but what does that have to do with me?"

Bennet shook his head like it was nothing and he should not even bring it up. "He said you were on a mission. Some secret mission that no one else knew about. He was acting really strange about it, and I thought maybe... I thought he was trying to cover up your death." Bennet shook his head again. "But it turns out you were here, sleeping off a... an eventful night." He nudged one of the beer bottles with his shoe. "So I guess he was just covering up for something else."

Harper grew pensive, trying again to remember how this could have happened. "Right," he said uncertainly. "I really don't usually--"

"I know," Bennet said, making his way back to the door. He stopped when he got there. "Oh, but there was a reason I noticed you weren't at work. I wanted to talk to you about Donner. I heard you've been concerned about his behavior recently."

Harper narrowed his eyes. "Yeah. He's just been a little off the last couple days." He sounded wary, as though he was expecting Bennet to tell him to let it go.

Instead, Bennet said, "I agree. I haven't known him long, but I think there is definitely something going on there. I just wanted to warn you about going to Danko with those concerns. Because I've noticed that over those same couple days, the two of them have gotten a little chummy. Just be careful who you talk to; that's all I'm saying."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind."

Bennet opened the door to leave. "And I don't see any reason for anyone else to know about this. If they all think you were on a secret mission, I won't say anything. Just get there as soon as you can." With that, he left the apartment.

–

Sylar watched as Harper dragged himself into the command center, looking around like he hoped no one would notice. Their eyes met briefly, but Harper broke the eye contact very quickly and hastened over to his desk. Sylar sent Elle a quick text to let her know it was time.

While Sylar waited for Elle to call him back, he pretended not to be paying attention to Danko walking over to Harper. Danko said something about Harper getting in later than expected and asking if everything went okay. Harper responded by saying that everything was fine and that he did not want to talk about it here. Before anything else could happen, Sylar's phone rang and he got up to take the call in private, asking Elle to "Hold on a second."

When he was mostly out of the room, but not quite, he hissed. "Why are you calling me?"

There was a slight pause, and then Elle said, "Oh, I get it. Because Harper was just here, and blah blah blah. So Harper's there now?"

Sylar was out in a hallway. There were a couple unimportant people milling around, which was what he wanted. He needed to conduct the conversation in such a way that if it got back to Danko, it would support what Sylar was about to tell him. If Danko did not hear about it, no harm done, but if he did, it would only help. "That does sound like an agent who just got here. When did he--"

Realizing that he was not going to continue, Elle started again. "Well, Bennet said things went really well at Harper's, and now it's all on you. So good luck with that."

Sylar waited a little longer before speaking because it was supposed to be somewhat of a drawn out story she was telling him. He tried to look as though he was hearing something mildly upsetting. "No, I'm glad you told me." He waited another second. "Okay, I'll see you later." He hung up without waiting for her to respond and walked back into the room.

Danko had moved away from Harper's desk and was now talking to another agent. Sylar walked up to them, interrupting their conversation. "We need to talk about the phone call I just got."

Danko apologized to the other agent and led Sylar into his office. He sat behind the desk and waited for Sylar to speak.

Sylar looked back at the door. "Do you know where Harper was today?"

Considering that Danko thought Sylar had just discovered that Elle was either dead or missing, Sylar had to admire how remarkably calm he was. The other man was not going to give anything away that he did not want Sylar to know. "He had a doctor's appointment. Something with his back."

Sylar shook his head. "I don't know about his back, but he went to my apartment today." Danko made a face to suggest that he found this news troubling. Sylar continued, knowing that expression would become genuine soon. "Elle just called to let me know. I guess when you did not share his concerns about my behavior, he decided to investigate on his own."

Danko expression did indeed become more troubled. "That's not good. Is she okay?"

Sylar found it a little perplexing that Danko was pretending to care if Elle was okay. He had really tried to give the impression that her well being was not important to him, but apparently, Danko was not convinced. "Yeah, she's fine, and that's actually what we need to talk about. The problem isn't that Harper's a little too curious for his own good. The problem for your purposes is that when he found her, he lowered his weapon and told her that he knew someone who could help her. He didn't say it straight out, but what he did say led her to believe that he was talking about Rebel. And that's what I thought you should know."

"Harper and Rebel?" He sounded doubtful, as though he was really having trouble believing that.

Sylar shrugged. "That's what Elle said. Now Rebel doesn't really bother me because I'm one of them." He smirked. "And I can be any one of them I want. I imagine he's a thorn in your side though. So just watch Harper, see if things are on the up and up with him. Maybe she misunderstood." He turned to go out the door.

"Wait," Danko called after him. Sylar turned around and waited. "Do you really think you can trust Elle Bishop?"

It did not sound like Danko was genuinely asking in order to determine how reliable the source was. It sounded more like the lead-in to an Elle bashing session. "God, no." He could tell that Danko was surprised by this response. "Trusting her has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the last couple years. I wouldn't take anything she said at face value. But, on the other hand, if Harper wasn't at the apartment, how did she know he would be late for work? How would she even know who he was to describe him to me? And the real question is what would she gain from telling me that? I'm just relating what she said; you can do what you want with it."

Danko gave a thoughtful nod, and Sylar attempted to leave again, but again, Danko stopped him, this time by blurting out, "Have you ever considered that maybe she made up the rape?"

Sylar turned around. He had considered that possibility as recently as the night before, but he was fairly certain of its authenticity now. Still, Danko was the biggest variable in Elle's plan, and Sylar wanted to hear him out to get the clearest picture he could of what the man was trying to do. "What makes you say that?"

Danko got up from his chair and came around the other side of the desk. "Over the last couple hours, I've been doing my own research on Elle Bishop. Apparently, back at the Company, she had a reputation for using sex to get what she wanted. She was even given assignments, like yours, that utilized her sexuality. I knew Wolski for years, and I don't think he was the kind of guy who would do what she's accusing him of. I think you should consider that it is far more likely that she seduced him and then killed him, inventing this whole rape story to make you feel like you had to protect her. I mean, you said you weren't interested in helping her until that happened. It seems a little convenient."

He did not really think that scenario was more likely than Elle's version; Sylar could tell. Sylar was able to piece together the purpose of denying the rape pretty easily though. If she did not need to be fixed, then Sylar could be done with her, and Danko would not have to worry about her influence over him. Sylar feigned growing pensive. "You think that's more likely because you weren't there, but that does sound like something she would do." He paused. "And I know why you're saying that, and it's a good point, but something else is occurring to me right now. We can use this. I just need a little more time with her and I think I can give you Rebel." That should keep Elle off limits for a couple more days. "And Harper... He now thinks that Donner has a girlfriend who's one of _them._ I could talk to him, see how sympathetic he really is. Just give me some time to work on this, because I think we have something here."

This time Danko let Sylar leave, but Sylar could feel the other man's eyes watching him as he made his way back to his own desk. Danko did not entirely trust him, which was fine. Considering Sylar's history and the nature of their partnership, it would probably be more creepy if he did. Thinking back on what had just transpired, Sylar thought he had come out ahead, and that was really all he could hope for.

Over the next few hours, Sylar waited for the right moment to approach Harper. He watched as the agent was called into Danko's office and left looking confused. Sylar was not too worried about what Danko might have said in that conference. He knew that Danko was too good at what he did to ask Harper if he was working with Rebel directly.

Finally, once most of the other agents in the office had taken off for the night, Sylar got his chance to talk to Harper. Having shown up so late, Harper was staying late to make up for it. Sylar pulled the chair over from the desk next to his and sat down across from Harper. He gave a furtive glance around, even though he knew they were momentarily alone in the room, and leaned in closer. "I think we should talk."

Harper also looked around, as though he was worried about his own safety. It occurred to Sylar that this must have been a very disorienting day for Harper. He held up his hands to show that he was not a threat. "Listen, Kent, Danko told me that you think I've been a little off the last few days. I just want you to know that I'm not..." Sylar shook his head like he was trying to find the right words. "I'm not the one who's acting strange. It's Danko. He's been... obsessed and paranoid. Ever since he killed Sylar, he's just been different, and he's been leaning on me a lot, and..." Sylar paused to try to give the impression that he did not want to say this next part. "I think he's losing it, man."

Harper took this in, looking uncertain. "He was asking me a lot of questions today about... This morning, Bennet said something like that too. But I mean, I know that Bennet never liked him. And he's got that daughter that makes him... Why are you telling me this?"

Sylar sat back. Really, Elle's plan was working better than he thought it would. "I'm in a difficult position here, but he, uh, he's expressed some concerns that you're asking too many questions. And he has this theory that you lied to him about why you were late today." Sylar leaned in again and whispered, "I know there was no mission." Then he went back to speaking at a normal volume. "His current obsession is Rebel, and--"

"He was asking about Rebel," Harper interrupted.

Sylar nodded like that did not surprise him. "Yeah, he's... He's obsessed with him, and I kind of understand it, but..." He sighed. "But with you missing work like this, I think he might be convincing himself that you're somehow connected to this Rebel... organization. And I want you to know that I don't believe that at all. I know you wouldn't do that. My advice for you is to just steer clear of Danko for a couple days. Let this die down."

Harper was too lost in his thoughts to even look at Sylar. "What if--"

Sylar got up from his seat. "No, listen, everything is going to be fine. I'm sure this is temporary. Danko's going to be normal again. I wouldn't even be telling you this except for the thing with Rebel. I think it was Sylar who did this to him. No one really knows what went down that night, but I think he just got in Danko's head somehow. Once he deals with whatever that was, everything will be fine again. Really, there's nothing to worry about; he just needs time to cope with whatever ghosts Sylar left behind."

Harper nodded absently. "Right, Sylar." He looked up at his fellow agent. "Hey, Steve, thanks for letting me know."

Sylar pushed the chair back over to the desk where it belonged. "Well, I wouldn't want to see anyone get hurt while this is going on. And obviously, I don't have to tell you that it's better if we keep this between ourselves for now. If this gets out, with Petrelli disappearing, it could cause the people at the top to shut down the whole operation." '

Sylar waited for Harper's assent, and then he left the building. His work was done for the day.

–

Other than going to Harper's apartment that morning, Bennet had spent most of his day in Anacostia. He even did a little canvassing, showing Elle's picture to a couple business owners in the area, just to keep up the appearance that he was trying to find her. He still dedicated the majority of his time to tracking down Nathan, though. Between trying repeatedly to get a hold of Angela, all to no avail, he called Nathan's Senate office, his ex-wife, and his children's school. No one had heard from him since the day Danko pushed him out of the window at Building 26. Then, still trying to reach Angela, he called in a few favors from old Company associates. None of them were able to help. There was one person who would be able to find Nathan easily, but Bennet knew that Matt Parkman would never tell him where to find Molly Walker.

After a long day of getting nowhere, Bennet was ready to go home. As he climbed into his car, he got a phone call from Harper. "I'm sorry to bother you after hours, but I didn't know who else to call."

"That's fine," Bennet said. He was actually happy to be kept in the loop with what Elle and Sylar were doing. "What's going on?"

Harper took a deep breath. "I just had a really strange conversation with Donner. He said—he said Danko's losing it because of what happened with Sylar. Or that that's when it started. He thinks it's all going to blow over, but..." There was a long pause. "I'll be honest, I've always thought you were unable to be objective because of your daughter and the fact that you worked for those people. But I also respect your perspective because of that. I mean, you've done this for a long time, and you knew Sylar a little, and I'm just wondering what you think about this."

Bennet appreciated Harper's candidness. He imagined that there were probably a number of Building 26 agents who felt the same way, and yet Danko was the only one who ever said it to his face. "About Sylar? Or Danko? I will say that if there was any one of them who could have thrown me off my game it would have been Sylar. He was, uh, unique. And I've seen the change in Danko, but I don't know if I would go so far as to say that he's losing it. He and I have never really seen eye to eye on these things, so..."

Harper did not wait for him to complete that thought. "But what about Donner? You said you noticed that he was different too. He tried to explain it that he was spending so much time taking care of Danko's... issues. Does that even make sense? This has been such a strange day. I don't know what's going on. You seem to understand--"

"I'm going to stop you right there." If Bennet understood his part correctly, his job was to nudge Harper, to be subtle about it. And while he thought it was good that Harper was coming to him with these concerns, he also knew that he should not push too hard here. "I can't tell you what to think about Danko or Donner. I wasn't even there today. All I'll say is that if you're suspicious of them, I think that's probably a good choice. And I think Sylar could mess up anyone, even from beyond the grave. I'm in the car right now. If you want to bounce some ideas off me or talk about what happened, I could swing by your place. But I'm not going to draw the conclusions because it's no secret that I don't like Danko."

"No, I understand." Harper seemed really pleased by this offer. "But I would really like to talk about it. Would you mind?"

Bennet assured him once again that it was fine and hung a U-turn to get to Harper's place.

–

Before entering his apartment building, Sylar called ahead to make sure that the coast was clear upstairs. Getting the okay, he headed up, expecting there to be some lingering fallout from Harper's visit that needed to be dealt with, but everything seemed fine. He went into the kitchen to find Elle, cooking, of all things. It was just pasta and canned sauce, but it was still surprising. "Did you exaggerate about the door?" he asked in a tone that suggested he thought he already knew the answer.

"No." She stirred the sauce. "I got it fixed. Had to pay through the nose to get it done so quickly, but it seemed important, in case you brought your boss home again." She turned away from the stove. "That's going to be like ten minutes. How was your day?"

This was so domestic that a little apprehension crept into Sylar's chest, but he pushed it down. It was just that this whole relationship was moving really fast. It was good to have things defined, but he would miss those days when he could avoid thinking about what anything meant. "Productive. I think we've laid a pretty good foundation. So far everything is going to plan, but I don't know what Danko's going to do."

Elle shrugged. "Something crazy." Her phone started to ring, and she went over to answer it. "Bennet," she said before opening the phone. "Hey, what's up? Did you find Nathan?" There was a short pause during which Elle's eyes grew very wide. "That's great!... Yeah, absolutely... It doesn't matter; he'll tell you."

After that, she listened for a while, and Sylar figured that there had to be more to the story than just finding Nathan, She seemed way too excited. "Yep, sounds like you got it... Okay, let me know how that goes." She hung up. "No Nathan, but Harper called him. He wants to talk through what happened today and get Bennet's input on what's going on with Danko. This is going better than I could have hoped."

Sylar wished he could share Elle's optimism. "Is that really something we can trust him with?"

"Yes!" Elle went back to stirring the sauce. "Bennet is the most professional person I have ever worked with. And he knows how to pull off deceit."

That was the part that worried Sylar, but she seemed confident about Bennet. It was interesting to see her in her element again. This was what she was trained for, and she seemed to be really enjoying herself. She was more confident than he had seen her since the rape, and a desire to encourage that was all it took for Sylar to accept her faith in Bennet's professionalism. "Okay, so what's the plan for tomorrow?"

–

It was a little late when Bennet got back to the apartment he was staying in. He still did not think of it as home. He had a home, with a family in it. It occurred to him that he should call Lyle. It was not so late in California, and they had not spoken much lately.

A half hour into his conversation with his son, his call waiting beeped. It was Angela finally returning his calls. He felt so guilty when he told Lyle that he needed to take this. As he switched over to the other line, he promised himself that he would find a way to make this up to Lyle, and to Sandra. He did not waste time by greeting Angela. "I need to find Nathan."

Angela's polished voice came from the other end. "Nathan's here with me, Noah, along with Claire. Don't worry, she's fine."

After everything he had gone through that day, this seemed remarkably easy. "They're in New York?"

"Arizona," she said matter of factly. "We needed to visit some ghosts. Peter's here too. And for right now, you can't keep her safe the way we can."

Bennet heard Claire in the background asking to talk to him. Angela handed over the phone before Bennet could tell her that he was actually looking for Nathan just for Nathan's sake. Still, he was not going to complain about being able to speak to his daughter. "Hi, Claire Bear. Angela's right. I'm working at fixing everything, but until I do, you should stay with Peter."

They talked for a couple minutes, and then Angela took back the phone. "So, you see, she's perfectly fine."

He generally got along with Angela just fine, but having Claire enveloped by Petrellis made Angela seem a bit grating."That's good, but actually I wanted to speak to Nathan. We're getting ready to move, and we need him."

–

–

**Author's Note:** I had no idea that Coyote Sands was in Arizona. So if you didn't either, that'll make me feel better. I really thought it was in one of the Dakotas.


	27. Chapter 27

**Author's Note:** I like this chapter, but I don't love it.

–

–

**Chapter 27:**

According to Elle, the next day would be fairly easy. Sylar was supposed to let everything die down a little so that it would not seem like it was all happening too all of a sudden. It needed to build naturally, so the only instigating Sylar had to do was tell Danko what Harper had supposedly said about Rebel, and everything else was just reacting to Danko and Harper.

When he got to the office, Sylar wanted to seek out Danko, get the conversation about Harper out of the way, but the other man was not there yet. That worried Sylar, because Danko was not the kind of guy to show up late for work. Sylar asked someone about it, and that agent shrugged and said that they got a hit on another local.

Despite the fact that the agent clearly believed that, Sylar was having trouble with it. "You're on his team. Why wouldn't he take back-up?"

This was met with another shrug. "He works better alone."

Sylar turned away from this useless person. He wanted to call Elle to make sure she was okay and warn her that something was up, but Harper waved him over. Sylar reluctantly walked over, telling himself that Elle would be fine. Danko had to know that Sylar would suspect him if anything happened while he was conspicuously missing. Of course, if he had downplayed her importance sufficiently enough, Danko might not think that Sylar would care. It was somewhat of a catch-22.

"Where's Danko?" Harper asked.

Sylar sighed. His goal was to sound like he was trying to hide his concern. "That's what I've been trying to figure out. Apparently, he found one and went out without back-up. But it worked last time, so..." He gave his own shrug. "I'm sure it's nothing," he finished unconvincingly.

Sylar turned to walk away, but he was intercepted by Bennet. "Donner, I was wondering if I could have a word with you."

He wanted to just tell Bennet that this was not a good time, but Harper was watching. So he followed Bennet into a conference room. "What can I do for you?"

Bennet hesitated, and then he shook his head. "Nothing, Harper just wants me to get a read on you. After what you told him last night, he's not sure what to believe about you or Danko."

Sylar knew that he was supposed to pretend that he did not know about Bennet's involvement. It seemed pointless right now, but it was to protect Elle, so he did it. "He shouldn't have told you about that. I was just trying to warn him that there was a slight possibility--"

Bennet cut him off by holding his hand up. "Even if I assume that Elle did not tell you that I'm working with Rebel, I realize that there is no way to have this conversation without you figuring it out. Thanks to the ability you stole from Sue Landers."

Sylar did not even try to deny any of the numerous implications of what Bennet said, hoping that, with that out in the open, they would not have to drag this out for long. "Well, she certainly doesn't need it anymore. So, now that you've made a show of this for Harper, can I go?"

Bennet wanted to say no, but he needed to concede that Sylar could do whatever he wanted. "Sure, I certainly don't want to be closed up in a room with you. But it would be better if it looked like we actually talked about something."

Sylar looked out the room's one window, but Bennet imagined there was nothing to see there. He was both relieved and disappointed when Sylar sat down at the conference table. "I don't think I have anything to say to you though," he said in his lazy, arrogant way.

Bennet remained standing. He had spent all night knowing that he would have to have a conversation with Sylar. It was not just for Harper's benefit, but also because there was no way for them to continue on pretending that they were not working together on this. In all that time he had to think about what to say, he had not been able to come up with anything either. He went with the first thing that came to his mind. "What are you doing with her?"

Sylar looked amused by this. "That's an incredibly personal question, Noah." There was something in this response that seemed put on. It appeared to Bennet that Sylar knew what he was really asking and wanted to avoid answering that question.

Bennet was not willing to let it go. "It's just that I was there for a lot of the big moments in your relationship. When you met, when you broke up because she baited you to kill someone, right after you killed her father and then tried to kill her." There was a milestone he did not want to mention, but it was a big one. "I was even there before and after you first slept together." He waved that away. "And I was there right before you killed her. So I've seen all the ups and downs, and I'm wondering what you're doing with her now. You've already killed her. How much more do you need to hurt her?"

"Oh, that was good," Sylar said sarcastically. "You almost sounded like you cared for a second there." He pulled out his phone to call Elle. "That reminds me. If you did care, I'd be a lot more worried about what Danko might be doing to her." There was no answer and eventually it went to voicemail. He put the phone down on the table, frustrated.

Bennet watched all of this, but he still felt like it could just be for his benefit. "Elle thinks--"

Sylar shook his head. "I'm not going to talk to you about Elle." He got to his feet. "I think it's been long enough. I have to get back to my apartment now."

Bennet made a point of looking at his watch. When Sylar went for the door, he moved to block it. "If he is there, she can handle it. She wouldn't want you there. It'll just alert Danko that you're suspicious of him. But to your point, one, I've never pretended to care about what happens to her, and two, I've never even come close to hurting her the way you have."

Sylar sank back into his chair. He went through a lot of thoughts before he settled on one. "Well, you did shoot her."

He had actually shot her twice now that he thought about it, but neither of those times had been even close to a kill shot, and at least one had been in self-defense. Still, Bennet knew that Sylar was right; he just had not been thinking about that. He tried to find a way to distinguish what he had done to her. "I think the ways you hurt her were far more extensive than just the physical pain you inflicted."

Sylar nodded his head as though he agreed, and then he seemed to remember who he was talking to. He shook his head. "You don't really care if Danko kills her though, right? I'm sure it was not your idea to bring her back."

Bennet thought about that for a moment. He had actually been very against resurrecting her, and yet, it had all been to help him kill Sylar. "No, it wasn't. I don't trust her, or you for that matter. And if Danko kills her... Well, I'm just not sure how much of a loss that would really be." He could see from Sylar's face that he would consider it a big loss, so maybe Elle was right about his feelings for her.

Listening to that, Sylar thought it was no wonder Elle was so easy to sway away from the Company and its agents, both now and at Pinehearst. Maybe she would have been a better agent if Bennet and Angela and her father had stopped marginalizing her. He stood again. This conversation was not serving any purpose. "Okay, now that you've made that clear, I'm just going to check up on her again." He picked up his phone, which he had almost left behind the last time he tried to leave. "Tell Harper that Danko's the one to be worried about, not me."

Bennet stepped aside to let him leave. Following behind him, Bennet went straight for Harper's desk, while Sylar went out into the hallway to call Elle.

–

It was about fifteen minutes after Sylar left the apartment that there was a knock on the front door. When she checked the peephole to find Danko standing there, she had a mini panic attack. She took a couple seconds to figure out how she was supposed to play this and opened the door. She just really wished that, at the very least, Rebel had arrived first. "Does Gabriel know you're here?"

"No." Danko opened the door wider and came into the apartment. "I was hoping we could keep this from... Gabriel, as a professional courtesy."

There was absolutely no way she would keep this from him, but she did not have to tell Danko that. "Are we in the same profession?"

He nodded as though that should be obvious. "In fact, I don't think we're very different at all. And that's why I wanted to talk to you directly."

One thought kept running through Elle head over and over. _He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me._ She managed to stay calm on the outside, but she could not quiet those internal fears. "Well, then as a professional courtesy, I'd like it if you'd leave your gun on the counter while we talk."

"I don't think that's going to leave us very evenly matched," Danko said, but he unholstered his weapon and laid it on the counter. Then he held up his hands as a show of good faith while he backed away.

Elle assumed that he had another weapon, but at least it would take him longer to get to it, giving her time to react. She pulled the conversation into the living room, taking Danko as far away from his gun as she could without leading him into the bedroom. "So, I take it you know who I am."

He nodded. "I did a little digging after our last meeting."

Elle did not want to sit down, so she continued standing, awkwardly. "So what is it exactly that you want me to keep from Gabriel?" Elle normally would have referred to him as Sylar, especially when talking to someone like Danko, but her role here was as Sylar's girlfriend, or at the very least, as someone who thought of herself as his girlfriend. And although, she was technically something akin to that, she still felt it was necessary to put on a few affectations.

"Just that I came here. Sylar says you're off limits, but you've been telling some stories about my agents, and I'd like to hear them directly from you."

Elle had some doubts that that was his real reason for coming, but she went with it. "Do you want to start with the one who raped me?"

He flexed his jaw a little. "I think we both know that's not exactly what happened."

Elle was confused by this statement. She was the only one who was there, and she thought that was a fair representation of the facts. "Then what do you think happened?"

"I think you saw a way to make Sylar more interested in you, and you took it."

Elle started to laugh. "That's insane. Why would I think something like that would make him like me more?"

Danko nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. And yet, it doesn't look like either of you are sleeping on the couch."

Elle opened her mouth to respond, but Danko did not give her the chance. That was probably for the best, since she had no idea what she was going to say to that. "I don't know what happened that night," he continued. "All I know is what Sylar told me, which is that he's starting to think it's a distinct possibility that you were never raped at all."

Elle did not know what she was supposed to do with that. First of all, it was probably a lie, except that Sylar had questioned it not too long before. And even if Danko was telling her the truth, she had no idea when Sylar supposedly said that or whether he meant it when he did. He had only given her broad sketches of what he said to Danko about her. She had a feeling they were getting to what Danko really came there for. "Well, that's an interesting theory. I'll have to, uh..." Her phone rang, breaking her concentration. "Have to let that go to voicemail," she finished, even that was clearly not what she was going to say. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Look, Elle, you seem like a nice girl--"

"No," she interrupted. "Apparently, I seem like someone who would lie about being raped and let an innocent man die for it."

Danko took a moment, and then he looked at her like he could see that she was someone who valued honesty. "I want Rebel, and if you were telling the truth about Harper, then you can make that happen for me. Sylar's almost done with you, and I'm just afraid that he's going to get rid of you before we get Rebel."

"He told you he's almost done with me?" That had to be a lie. She did not have time to think too much about that right then. She needed to pay attention to Danko. She would have plenty of time to figure out what his angle was after he was gone. "What does that mean, exactly?"

Danko paused like this was not really his place, and Elle agreed that it wasn't. "Well, he thinks you manipulated him with this whole rape thing, and he said this is just your dynamic. You help each other, and then you hurt each other. So now, he's helped you, and... You have to see it coming."

Elle thought about that because, again, she was at a loss. She was probably supposed to be though. "I don't. I don't see that at all. If anything, it's my turn to hurt him."

Danko shrugged. "I don't really care either way. I just want Rebel first. So what did Harper tell you?"

As soon as he said that about not caring, something clicked for Elle. This was not about Rebel. Sylar was offering to get Rebel; Elle knew that much. So why would he warn her when he so clearly wanted her gone? Harper was a bust; Bennet was uncontrollable. The more people he involved, the more likely it was that someone would find out about Sylar. The only explanation Elle could think of for why he would say these things was that he wanted them to fight. He wanted this all to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If Elle tried to hurt him, the most likely outcome would be that Sylar would kill her or "get rid of" her in some way. Now that she had a theory, she could breathe a little easier.

Danko misread her silence. "Look, I can help you. You don't have to end up like the rest of them. As far as the United States government is concerned, you're dead. No one is looking for you. If you cooperate. Tell me about Harper."

Elle shook her head like she was breaking out of her own thoughts. "Oh, I'm sorry. You want to know what he said? Specifically, he said that you sent him here. Yeah, I kept that little tidbit from Gabriel--" She shook her head again to give Danko what he wanted. "--Sylar. I didn't tell Sylar, but maybe I should. Maybe I just need to _help_ him a little more."

Danko looked at her with pity. "And how long is that going to keep you alive? You need to help someone who is not emotionally involved, someone who will keep his promises. Someone who didn't kill your father. What did Harper say?" This time he asked with a little more urgency.

Whatever other motives he might have, clearly finding out about Harper was a big part of the reason he was there. "He didn't tell me anything about Rebel. He didn't even say the name. I stopped him before he could get into any of that, said I was too in love with Donner to leave. But he did say something that you might want to know. To prove to me that I could trust him, he told me about..." She trailed off.

Danko took a step closer. "What?"

Elle took a step back so that they were the same distance apart again. She was improvising here, and she wished that she had a little more time to think this through. She grimaced to make her reluctance very clear. "You probably already guessed this if he's working with Rebel, but... Harper's one of us. A technopath, he showed me. He got in the system, changed his DNA results. That's how he got past your screening." She closed her eyes briefly. "I'll tell him I changed my mind. I'll tell him I want to meet this man who can protect me."

He walked over to her. "You're making the right choice, Elle." He put his hand on her shoulder.

She recoiled from his touch. It was a very visceral reaction. "The rape wasn't a lie. Please don't ever touch me again." She wanted to take advantage of this emotional state. In a shaky voice, she asked, "Are you sure that Gabriel meant--"

For a second, it looked like Danko actually had compassion for her, but then he nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure. But if this Rebel thing pans out, you'll be fine." He headed to the door, picking his gun up on his way out.

Once he was gone, Elle took several deep breaths. Her phone rang again, and this time she answered it. She did not look at the display, so she had no way of knowing if the person calling now was the same person who called a few minutes earlier, but she still said, "I'm sorry about before. I couldn't get to the phone."

Sylar's voice came from the other side. "Danko didn't show up for work this morning, and I wanted to--"

She put her hand to her head. "Yeah, he was here. But for today, just pretend that you don't know that."

There was a slight pause. "Are you okay? What did he do to you?"

Elle knew that she sounded affected. She had pushed herself into a vulnerable state to sell what she was saying to Danko. Now, she was having trouble getting out of it. All she could think about were Danko's lies. God, she hoped they were lies. She did not want to get into any of that over the phone. "He didn't do anything to me. I'm sorry, I need to call Rebel with the updated plan. I'll see you tonight." She hung up before he could say anything else.

It was not a lie. She did need to update Rebel on this technopath development, but that probably could have waited for her at least to say a proper good-bye. She would see him that night, though, in person, when she was less emotional.

–

Sylar did not like the way Elle had rushed off the phone, nor did he like that she was clearly upset about something. She said that Danko did not do anything to her, and she believed that was true, but it was obvious to Sylar that the other man had done _something_ to her. And he could not even ask about it because he was not supposed to know. He wanted to go home to talk to Elle about it in person, but he knew that he needed to stay and keep up appearances.

Before Danko came back, Donner's team was sent out on a mission, which was probably for the best. Sylar needed something to help him focus. They were given a name and an address, but no indication of what the person's ability might be. Sylar had repeatedly told Danko that it was foolish to go in blind, but today, Sylar liked the challenge.

Sylar and his team returned several hours later with an unconscious woman who apparently had the ability to burn things with her touch. The majority of the trip had been taken up by travel. Once they tasered her, it was no problem slipping the shunt onto her. They dropped her off at the delivery door and headed back into the office.

It was almost time to knock off, and Sylar had had a productive day by Building 26 standards. But he still had not performed the one task Elle had given him. He knew that he could not leave without talking to Danko. He popped his head into the office, deciding to significantly pare down Elle's script. "I just want to let you know that I tried to talk to Harper, but he was not very cooperative. He doesn't believe that I'm sympathetic. He thinks I'm just using her or taking advantage of her or something like that. Sorry about that." He finished with a small shrug.

Danko waved him into the office, and Sylar reluctantly closed the door behind him. "I want you to try something else. Tell him you have an ability, doesn't matter which one, and see what he does then."

Sylar was not sure where that was coming from, so he just nodded. "Will do," he said. By which he meant that he would ask Elle what her version of Harper would do then. He let himself out of the office and passed by Harper desk, giving him a quick, "Everything's fine." And then he was out the door and finally on his way to find out what was wrong with Elle.

When he came through the door, Elle looked fine, chipper in fact. It was definitely an act. "So, let's talk about what happened with Danko," she said brightly.

Sylar sat down on the couch and gestured for her to join him. "Okay, let's talk about that."

Elle hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to him. "First, I'm going to tell you my theory. I think he wants you to kill me."

That actually sounded reasonable to Sylar, but he was not sure how Danko intended to accomplish that. A lot of different thoughts swirled in his head of what Danko might make her do, and he needed to just hear what actually happened before he got too far ahead of himself. "Okay," he prompted.

"But I think he wants Rebel first, or maybe I told him everything he needed by telling him about Harper. I don't know. So he told me that you were going to kill me. He said that you're done with me and that we're at the point in our cycle where it's time to hurt each other again. And--" She shook her head. "So I think he just wants us to fight so that you'll want to do it or something."

Her smile cracked at several points, and Sylar could see that she was trying to pretend that none of this bothered her. "Yeah, I think I said something like that. I was just trying to stall, so I told him that I would turn you over as soon as the time was right." He hoped the fact that he was telling her that reassured her that he had not intention of actually doing it.

"Oh." She nodded. "Did you also tell him that you think I faked what happened in Kansas because I wanted to make you more interested in helping me?"

So that was what Danko did; he filled her head with lies. "No."

She stayed bright, but it was clear that she did not believe him. "It's okay if you did. I mean I told people that I was going to kill you. You just say what you have to say; I understand." She paused. "I just don't know what I can say to make you believe that it really happened. I mean, the electric charges didn't work, so the one held a gun to my head, and he asked me all kinds of questions about you, but I wouldn't answer. So he said... He said that..." She cleared her throat as though that was all that was stopping her from saying it.

Sylar realized that he had never heard any of the details of what happened before he got there. He really wanted to know what the agent said, but he put his hand on her arm to stop her. "Elle, I believe you."

She ignored this. "He said that he knew how to make me talk, and he got his friend to hold the gun on me, and he climbed on top of me. And I never told him to stop, Gabriel. So if you want to think that it wasn't... that's fine, but I just want you to understand that it wasn't any kind of conspiracy."

Using the hand that he already had on her arm, he pulled her against him. "I made a mistake. A couple nights ago, when I asked you about that, it was just in a moment of anger. I have never seriously doubted what happened that night. And I never told Danko that. He asked me if it was a possibility, because he didn't like me thinking that I owed you anything. And I told him..." Sylar bent his head down to look her in the eye. "I told him that it wasn't possible. And, Elle? If he had to hold a gun to your head, he knew that you didn't want him to do it. You didn't have to say anything."

Elle was quiet for a few seconds. "That really wasn't my point." She pushed away from him and sat up. "I really just... I don't want you to think that I'm fragile. I knew that Danko was lying about most, if not all of it. I believed that you don't want to kill me again. I just don't want you to think that I'm going to fall apart if you... I mean, I heard what you were saying before and all. But if you _ever_ want to leave me, or more to the point, if you ever want to accuse me of lying, about anything, I want you to know that I can handle it. Especially with the lying. I lie all the time, and you know that. So you can just call me on it, and... I'll probably keep lying to the best of my ability, because I'm stubborn."

Sylar smiled at that, and that seemed to relax Elle. She smiled too, her first genuine smile that night. "But direct questions," she said. "That's the secret."

He nodded to let her know that he understood. "So are we good?"

"Yeah." She sighed with visible relief and got up from the couch. "Why don't you make dinner while I tell you all about Harper's wonderful new ability."

Sylar pushed himself to his feet. Now he understood Danko's request better. "Okay, and then you can help me decide which ability Donner is going to have because Danko wants me to try that to get Harper's trust."

"Hmm, I need to think about that." Elle led the way into the kitchen. "But Bennet called a while back to let me know that Nathan is back. So we are good to go tomorrow."

–


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

The next morning, Bennet awoke with a little bit of dread. Elle and Sylar had revised the plan for what she claimed was the last time. She was sure that they could manipulate the situation to make this day the perfect day to move. Nathan had a tentative meeting scheduled with the President for that afternoon, and they needed Danko out of the way before that meeting occurred. Bennet felt that while their plan might look good on paper, there were far too many things that could go wrong.

He also felt that this plan put far too much faith in Sylar. Before it had only been Bennet who was put in danger, and Bennet could handle it. But with this new addition of Harper's ability, other people, evolved humans, were being compromised. Looking at the big picture, Bennet could see how it was necessary to the plan for Danko to witness a little technopathy, and he could see why for timing reasons, it would be better if the technopath was actually there. And in order to do that, Rebel had to be there to keep the kid of being detected. It all was justified by the plan, but it also meant that there would be two people there with incredibly useful abilities that Sylar did not yet have. It was just interesting to Bennet how Sylar had worked that out.

When Bennet got to work, he saw Harper and "Donner" conversing in a corner of the command center. He did not know what Sylar was saying to the other man, but somehow he had gotten Harper to take out his phone and look intently at it. Trying to look at the situation from Danko's perspective, it could easily look like Harper was showing off a technopathic ability.

–

It was difficult for Sylar to concentrate on work when he knew that there was a very good chance this entire program would be shut down by this time tomorrow. Once he had talked to Harper that morning, there was nothing for him to do but to wait for Rebel and the technopath. Elle had made him promise that he would leave the technopath alone because, according to her, he was just a kid and his ability did not afford him any real defenses in a fight. Sylar had agreed, but he felt that eventually this whole promising not to kill people thing was going to become a problem for them.

A couple hours after Sylar talked to Harper, he got a text message from Bennet, signaling that Rebel and the technopath had been let into the building. He got up from his desk and went to Danko.

Danko did not look particularly happy to see him. He seemed to be just a little nervous, but it was hard to tell with Danko. Sylar realized that this was the first time they had talked since Sylar went home to see Elle. He supposed that explained it. He crossed his arms and pretended not to notice. "So Harper's a technopath. I'm guessing you already suspected that. It was good guess. Working with Rebel, probably has an ability."

Danko nodded absently. He did not show any visible relief, but Sylar could imagine it was there. "You're sure? You saw him do this?"

"Yeah, but I mean I could get him to do it again if you want to be sure." He pretended to think about that for a moment. "I'll ask him to delete someone from the server, say it's an old friend of Elle's. Watch us, watch the network, and you'll see that uh..." He paused to pull a name out of thin air. "...Penkala Burton has disappeared."

Danko got up from his desk and looked over the main room. It was obvious that he wanted to see it. If that was an option, why would he want to take Sylar's admittedly unreliable word for it? He turned around, taking a deep breath. "What ability did you tell him you have?"

"Telekinesis."

Danko did not like that. "Why would you chose one that is so strongly linked to you?"

When Sylar stopped to realize that he was not actually going to tell Harper anything like that, he told Elle she could stop thinking about it. But she insisted that they needed to have every detail clear in their minds. She wrote out a list of his abilities and went through each one to determine which was the best for Donner to have. Now Sylar was glad she had done that. "He's seen Donner get hurt before, so healing's out. If Donner had alchemy, why would he live like that?" He borrowed Elle's exact words with that. "I initially rejected it for the exact reason you just said, but I'm not the only person out there with telekinesis, and he has no reason to suspect that I'm Sylar."

He seemed satisfied by that answer. He nodded. "You can get him to do it right now? Use his ability?"

"I believe so." Sylar feigned concern. "You're not going to do anything, are you? This is about Rebel."

Danko got annoyed by this. "I'm aware of that. Just make him do it."

Sylar gave a sarcastic salute and went out of Danko's office. He headed directly to Harper's desk and leaned over the other man's shoulder. He did not say anything; he just sighed, and this caused Harper to turn around, alarmed. "What's going on?" Harper asked.

Sylar sighed again and closed his eyes briefly. "He's lost it. He... he's convinced that you're one of them."

Harper looked at Danko's office. Sylar followed his eyes to see Danko at the window looking down at them in a creepy way. Sylar almost smirked at how well that was working out, but instead he shook his head slowly. "No, don't look at him. Look at the computer screen or something."

Harper quickly obeyed, and Sylar pushed a little more. "Put your hands over the keyboard," he whispered. "Pretend like you're working. I'm risking a lot by talking to you with him watching. Can we at least pretend that this is not about him?"

Harper nodded. "What are we going to do?"

"Okay, first, Kent, I need you to assure me that you're not one of them. I don't know where this is coming from, but if there is any chance that it's true..."

"No, it's not true!" Harper hissed.

Sylar was trying to stall to give the technopath time to do his thing. It did not really matter what he said. "Sorry. I had to ask. I'm going to talk him down, I'm sure that he's not going to do any--" The door to Danko's office opened and Sylar turned his head to look in that direction. Bennet was going into the office, which meant that the technopathy was done. Sylar watched them for a little while longer, and then he looked back at Harper. "He's distracted. Maybe you should... get yourself put on a mission. Just get away from him while he's busy with Bennet."

"Are you sure you're not overreacting?"

Sylar gave a half chuckle. "Overreacting? He thinks you're one of them. He just had me up in his office coming up with these crazy ideas about how I could draw it out of you by telling you that I'm one too. He's been ranting, and half the time he does not even make sense. I don't want to think that you're in danger, that any of us are in danger, but I don't know what to think anymore."

Bennet left the office, with Danko following behind him. It was showtime. Sylar and Elle had discussed how this next part would work, and Sylar swore that he could do it, but he had actually never pulled anything like what he was about to do. They knew that there was nothing they could do to get Danko to pull a gun on Harper of his own volition, so they were going to need to simulate it.

Bennet walked past Harper and Sylar, but Danko slowly came to a stop, His last step was abrupt, but Sylar was pretty sure it worked. He held Danko's lips shut together so that the other man could not speak and give away that he was out of control. Sylar could see the panic in his eyes, but to anyone else they could just as easily be crazed. Bennet kept walking as though he did not notice that Danko was no longer behind him.

The next part was a little tricky; Sylar had to hold Danko's feet and mouth, while simultaneously forcing Danko's arm to fluidly reach into his holster and pull out his gun, and he had to do all of that without looking like he was concentrating. As soon as he had the gun pointing at Harper, Sylar came around the desk and pushed Danko's arm down. "Don't do this, man." He put an arm around Danko's shoulder, and releasing his feet but not his mouth, guided Danko out into the hall. When they were out of earshot, Sylar allowed Danko to speak again.

"What was that?" Danko asked. "Did you do that to me?"

"No," Sylar continued to guide him into a room where Bennet was waiting. "It was like you were in a trance. I've never seen anything like that." With a little force he wrested the gun away from Danko and handed it to Bennet.

Danko seemed to realize just how wrong things were a moment too late. Bennet popped Sylar twice in the chest with Danko's gun. Sylar fell backward, holding the bullets inside him and forcing himself not to heal.

"What the--"

Bennet did not let Danko finish. He punched his colleague in the face, probably enjoying it a little too much. When Danko when down, Bennet crouched to the floor and dropped the gun, so that it would look like he was picking it up just as the other agents were responding to the sound of shots fired. He looked up into the face of the first agent to enter the room, Taub. "He shot Donner. I think he's dead."

Taub went over to check Donner for a pulse, and Bennet held his breath because he was not sure if Sylar would be able to literally stop his heart from beating. Danko got up to his feet. "I didn't shoot Donner. He did."

Bennet pushed himself up to a standing position as well. "Why would I shoot Donner?"

"He's dead," Taub said thickly.

"What? No, he can't be dead." Danko looked down at Donner's apparently dead body. He kicked it gently. "Get up." When Donner did not move, he kicked it harder. "Get up!" There was still no movement from the body, and Danko ran his hands over the top of his head. "They set me up. The two of them were in on it together."

Another agent, one whose name Bennet did not even know, spoke up. "You think Donner had Bennet kill him, just to set you up?"

Taub pulled Danko's arms behind his back. "We all saw you pull a gun on Harper. Or maybe it was really Donner you were threatening."

As they dragged him out of the room, Bennet could hear Danko saying that wasn't Donner in there, and Harper, he's one of them. He got into the computer; Danko saw him. He sounded completely insane. Alone in the room with Sylar, Bennet crouched down. "I have to admit, that was a better plan than I thought." Taking a switchblade out of his pocket, he turned Sylar's head and plunged the knife in.

–

Nathan understood that the President was a very busy man, and he knew that he was fortunate to get this meeting on less than twenty-four hours notice. The President had scheduled Nathan in during his travel time from one place to the next. Nathan got into the limousine and shook the President's hand.

The President did not waste any time on small talk. "What is going on with your people down there, Petrelli? I just heard that Danko shot one of his men after threatening another with a gun."

Nathan was aware that there was a broad plan in place to make Danko look unstable, but that sounded really extreme. He wondered who had been shot. "Well, no offense, Mr. President, but Danko was not one of my people. You're the one who brought him in for this project, and I have never agreed with his methods."

The President raised his eyebrows. "And so you just abandoned the project? Where have you been for the last week?"

"I was forced out by Danko. He accused me of being compromised. He even claimed to have proof that I am one of those people. He pulled a gun on me and threatened my children." Nathan was purposefully vague about his illegitimate daughter. That was not the kind of information that should be volunteered too casually, especially to politicians, be they allies or opponents, and especially when his political capital was running a little low. "I've been making sure they were safe. What you're saying about Danko now... I haven't been to the building yet, and I haven't heard about the shooting, but it does not surprise me. I scheduled this meeting to tell you that Danko is out of control and to suggest that the whole project was broken. I guess now you can see that firsthand."

The President nodded thoughtfully. "And what do you suggest we do to fix it?"

–

–

**Author's Note:** I think there is only one more chapter.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

Bennet knew that it would have been easier for him to get Sylar into the body bag and onto a gurney if Sylar were still alive, but he also knew that chances to kill Sylar would be few and far between. He went over to a footlocker that he knew conveniently contained a body bag, and when he turned back, he noticed that Sylar's arm twitched. Then it slowly raised, going straight for his head. When it pulled the knife out of his skull, Bennet dropped the body bag and pulled out his gun.

Sylar opened his eyes, and they locked on the gun. The next thing Bennet knew, the gun flew out of his hands. As his death grew imminent, Bennet could not help but think that Elle should have just stuck to the original plan.

Sylar sat up, becoming truly Sylar, and tsked at Bennet. "That way is not going to work anymore, Noah. You're going to have to get more creative." He dropped the knife to the floor and pushed himself up to his feet.

Bennet did not know how Sylar had come back from that, and he found that he did not actually care. Of all the things Sylar had survived, what was one more? "So now what happens?"

Sylar smirked, pulling the body bag into his hand. "Well, now, that is an excellent question. I could kill you, zip you up in this bag, and walk out of here with you on gurney." He shifted briefly into Bennet and then back to himself. "I could have kept working with Danko, meeting people like me and becoming like them. But, no, I am here for _you,_ Noah." He was getting annoyed, but not angry. That did not really make him any less dangerous; Bennet just found it interesting. "This is just like last time when we worked together and you tried to get Stephen Canfield to kill me. And speaking of that, don't _ever_ try to use Elle against me again."

Bennet rolled his eyes. "Of course she told you about that. All that talk about how she could never have feelings for you again." He shook his head. "I knew this would happen."

Sylar laid the bag out on the gurney. "Yeah, well, don't be too hard on her. She's the only reason you're still alive right now. So you want to know what we do now? We're going to stick to the plan. I am going to get in that body bag and let you wheel me out of here, so that you can tell everyone that you sent Donner back to his family in Connecticut. And I am going to do that for her."

Bennet had some experience with Sylar. He had been through all kinds of twists and turns and mind games, coming from both sides. He knew that Sylar had long intended to end this game of cat and mouse. But for some reason, he felt that he might believe that Sylar just wanted to stick to the plan. "Oh, that's right. Because you're falling for her. Tell me, how has anything changed since the night of the eclipse? What makes you, either of you think that it's going to work out any better this time?"

Sylar did not seem to have an answer for that. "Why do you care?" he asked with an edge to his voice.

This question left Bennet at a bit of a loss, and he was ready to drop this entire conversation. "I don't. Get in the body bag."

Sylar's eyes lingered on Bennet's for just a second too long. It occurred to Bennet that he might have just lied to Sylar. It did not matter. He could not kill Sylar, and he would not kill Elle unless he had to. It was better to just get them out of his life, at least until he could think of a more creative way to kill Sylar. If Sylar was feeling generous and forgiving at the moment, Bennet was not going to push his luck with another failed attempt on his life.

The moment was fleeting, like the lie, and Sylar climbed into the body bag. He changed back into Donner, and then the bag zipped itself up.

As Bennet puled the gurney into the hall, Harper came walking up. Bennet stopped because he knew it was expected. "Where are you taking him?" Harper asked.

Bennet hoped this would be brief. He knew that he needed to seem sad, but he had not even liked the real Donner that much. "He's being shipped back to his family. It's what he would have wanted."

Harper looked down at the bag. "Danko's been talking, mostly not making sense. He said that Donner had a girlfriend though. Did he ever mention anyone to you?"

Bennet shook his head. "I'll look into that." He started to go again, but the other agent was still staring at the body. "Harper, this wasn't your fault."

Harper finally made eye contact again. "Is it wrong that I'm glad it wasn't me?"

Now that Bennet knew he had gotten close to the root of it, he was able to proceed more confidently. "That's just human nature. I was in the room when it happened, and I'm really glad it wasn't me." He checked his watch. "He needs to be on a plane in an hour."

Harper nodded and took a step back. "I'm sorry, Steve."

When Bennet began to roll the gurney away, Harper did not stop him. No one said anything to Bennet as he commandeered a transport van, placing the body inside. The agents were going through the motions, trying to find their footing after this development, and Bennet was as much an authority figure as Danko had been. Once the van was away from the building, Sylar opened the body bag and sat up. Bennet thought about trying to make conversation, maybe ask again about Elle, but that would just lead back to the question of why he cared. For his part, Sylar did not say anything either.

He pulled into the prearranged meeting place, far enough out of town to be private. It seemed that they were the first to get there, but with Claude it was often hard to tell. After about a minute of waiting to see if he and Elle would appear out of thin air, Bennet finally decided that they were not there yet. He leaned back in his seat.

Sylar was antsy. He got out of the van and started to pace. Bennet rolled down his window. "Calm down, Gabriel. They'll be here."

Sylar snarled a little when Bennet used his given name, but then he shook it off. "I just want this to be over."

Bennet wanted to ask what that would mean for Elle, but again he refrained from bringing up her name. Instead, he said the only other thing that came to mind. "It will be. Soon enough."

Sylar looked at him, annoyed. He open his mouth to say something, but he stopped at the sound of a car approaching. Both men glanced up to make sure it was not an unexpected intruder. The second the car came to a stop, Elle jumped out of the driver's seat and ran up to Sylar. He pulled her away from the van, presumably so that they could talk away from Bennet.

Claude and Bennet both got out of their respective cars, meeting in the middle. "Sorry it took us so long," Claude said. "We had to drop off the boy. We wouldn't want to tempt Sylar unnecessarily."

Bennet nodded in agreement and angled himself so that he could watch Sylar and Elle's conversation, even if he could not hear it. "So I take it your work here is done then?"

He shrugged. "It will be once your government releases all of them."

"There will just be a new Company, you know. Angela has already sold her vision to Nathan, and he should be talking the President into it as we speak."

Claude noticed that Bennet was not looking at him, and he moved into his old partner's eye line. "There will always be a Company, Noah. Especially now that the President of the United States is involved. I don't suppose we could get the Haitian to unring that bell."

Bennet shook his head, but he was distracted by Sylar and Elle. Claude turned around to look at them. "You know, I happened to be in the room when you were talking to him before. It sounded like he might really love her."

"He killed her." Bennet was still having trouble determining why that bothered him. Hadn't he just said the day before that he would not consider her death much of a loss? Elle pulled Sylar's head down to kiss him, and Bennet finally looked away, not really wanting to see that.

Claude took time to think about the love/murder dichotomy. "Well, she's a big girl now, and we have to let her go. She's made her choice, and even if it gets her killed again, there's not much we can do about that anymore. She wants to be with him."

Bennet glanced back, but Elle was still hanging all over the man who killed her and her father. He found what Claude was saying to be comforting. This was her choice, and she had never really been his responsibility in the first place. He could just let her go.

–

Seeing Sylar again, Elle was so nervous about what would come next. They had never really talked about that. She got out of the car as soon as it was in park, without even bothering to turn off the engine. She let him lead her away from the van and Bennet. "I heard you did really well," she said.

He was staring at her lips. He moved his eyes up to meet hers and put his hands on her shoulders. "I just did what you told me to."

Elle knew that she needed to ask the question that was really weighing on her mind. "So, now that that's over, where do we go from here?"

"I don't know." He slid his hands from her shoulders down her arms. He looked behind her at the men standing by the cars. "I know that you think Rebel and Bennet are the only ones offering you a place in the world, but I think there might be somewhere else you belong."

Elle smiled with relief. That was really all she wanted him to say. Even though it might be a mistake, she knew that she was willing to follow him anywhere. She just needed to clear up a few things to make sure this could work. "Just for my information, are you still going to kill people?"

'Yes," he said without hesitation. "This is who I am, Elle, and when I try to deny it, that's when things go wrong."

Elle was willing to accept that interpretation of why things went wrong, although it was not entirely accurate. "That's okay. I like who you are" She put her hand on his chest. "But while we're being candid, I do kinda see you as a..." The first metaphor that came to her mind was a wild stallion who just needed to be broken, but she was able to come up with something that would probably be better received. "Like a lone wolf, hunting, picking off the weak sheep. I want you to know that if we're together, I'll probably never stop wanting to tame you."

He parted his lips in a smile, baring his teeth, making him look a little like a wolf actually. "Well, you can try."

Elle had worried that he would not see the difference between trying to tame him and trying to change him, but that did not seem to be the case. A slow smile spread across her face. Now that she had permission, she knew that she could. This entire day was proof that she had the ability to tame him. After all, she had been the one to release him into the wild in the first place. She pulled at his collar to bring his head down to hers and kissed him, not caring if Bennet and Claude were watching.

Sylar pulled away first. He kept his arms wrapped around her waist, but his eyes flicked over her head. "Bennet is staring at us."

Elle broke his hold on her and took his hand, pulling him over to Bennet and Claude. "We have to say goodbye."

"Not really," Sylar said under his breath.

Walking up to the other two men, Elle ignored him. "We're going to head out now. It was really a pleasure to work with you, but I kinda hope I never have to see either of you again." She held out her hand to shake each of their hands.

As he took hers, Bennet said, "The feeling's mutual." He dropped her hand and stepped back. "And Gabriel, someday I will find a way to kill you."

Sylar smirked. "Good luck with that."

Elle was confused by that exchange because she was pretty sure Bennet already knew a way to kill Sylar. "What is he talking about?" she asked in a low tone.

Sylar shook his head slightly. "I'll tell you later. Can we go now?"

"Sure." Elle looked at the car she had arrived in and realized that it was no longer running. "As soon as I--"

Before she could finish, Claude pulled the keys out of his pocket and held them out to her. As she reached for them, he said, "You know Noah. He talks tough, but if you ever need help--" He briefly looked over at Sylar. "--you can come to either of us."

On a whim, Elle hugged him, surprising herself and Claude. She knew that he was the closest thing she had left to a father, and even though she had not seen him much in the last ten years, she felt that she was going to miss him. She backed away, and noting the apprehension in Bennet's eyes, said in a teasing tone, "Don't worry, Noah. I'm not going to hug you too."

She sighed, knowing it was long past time to get Sylar away from Claude and his incredible ability. He was not that tame yet. She wanted to leave anyway, before things got any more sappy. She took Sylar by the hand and led him to the car. Once they were both buckled in and she was backing out onto the dirt road, she asked him where they were headed first.

Sylar thought about that. He seemed to have an answer that he was unwilling to give her. Elle realized that maybe she needed to clarify something. "I really don't mind if you kill people, Gabriel. I like killing people."

"No, that's not..." He shook his head, embarrassed. "Actually, I'd like to go back to Jersey first and check on Luke." Elle grinned as she shifted into drive, and Sylar shook his head again. "Don't look at me like that," he said. "It's just that his mother was not--"

"You don't have to explain," Elle said, now trying to hold back her grin. "I was there. I know how his mother was. I think it's sweet that you care about the kid so much."

Sylar rolled his eyes. "You are really bad for my image. First, you complain that I'm too nice, and now you're calling me sweet and saying you want to tame me." He held up his hands. "Never mind. I take it back. I don't care what happens to him. Let's just go kill some people."

Elle nodded very seriously. She was perfectly willing to be his humanity, if that was what it would take to protect his image. "You know what? I care. And, as the driver right now, I am going to have to put my foot down and say that we are going to New Jersey."

There was a hint of a smile on his lips as he leaned back and closed his eyes. "Well, if you insist."

Since he could not see her with his eyes closed, Elle took the opportunity to steal a glance at Sylar. What they had now was very different from whatever it had been the last two times. She could feel it. Maybe Claude and Bennet were right, and maybe she would need their help someday. But she knew, at a level that was not entirely rational, that everything was going to be fine this time. No spectacularly bad ending in sight.

–

–

**Author's Note:** That's it. I'm not so good at strong, definitive endings, but hopefully that leaves most of you satisfied.


End file.
